Elasticized Ecclesiology The Concept of Community After Ernst Troeltsch PDF

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ELASTICIZED
ECCLESIOLOGY
THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY
AFTER ERNST TROELTSCH
Ulrich Schmiedel
Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious
Dialogue
Series Editors
Gerard Mannion
Department of Theology
Georgetown University
Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Mark Chapman
Ripon College Cuddesdon
Cuddesdon Oxford, United Kingdom
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Ulrich Schmiedel
Elasticized
Ecclesiology
The Concept of Community after Ernst Troeltsch
Ulrich Schmiedel
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Munich, Germany
Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue

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Meinen Eltern
Acknowledgments
If the elasticization of ecclesiology could be taken literally, churches would

look like the church on the cover of this study: scaffolded. The scaffold-
ing, however, would be permanent rather than preliminary because the
construction of church could not be completed. That I could complete
writing about the elasticization of ecclesiology is due to the support from
colleagues and companions whom I would like to thank.
At the University of Oxford, Werner G. Jeanrond has fostered and facili-
tated my theological thinking. His vision of theology as a Relationsvetenskap
rather than a Religionsvetenskap has inspired me immensely. Following a
formulation from the country both of us come from, I am tempted to call
him my Doktorvater. But since he hesitates to use this formulation himself,
I switch to a metaphor he favors: I am grateful for his midwifery. I thank
Brian Klug. Throughout the work on this study, his advice has proven
invaluable. He has shown me social thought in action. The consequences
of our intriguing and inspiring conversations lurk between the lines of this
study. I am grateful for his philosophical chutzpah. Mark D. Chapman,
Jörg Lauster, Matthias Petzoldt, Gert Pickel, Sturla J. Stålsett and Johannes
Zachhuber have discussed the core concerns as well as the core concepts of
this study with me at different points in the process. I am indebted to their
careful, collegial and often cheerful advice. Thanks are also due to Marijn
de Jong and Tobias Tan. Both of them worked their way through the
pages of this study, the one with an eye for the metaphysical and the other
with an eye for the physical. I thank them for the discussions we had (not
all of them in the pub), for not letting go of those points which are crucial
vii
viii Acknowledgments
to their theological thinking and for continuing to agree and to disagree

with me. Both where we did and where we did not concur, I have learned
a lot from them. Despite their eagle-eyed proofreading, mistakes may have
crept into the text. Unfortunately, these are my own.
I am grateful for the support by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
Without the Stiftung, from which I gained much more than financial
funding during my studies inside and outside Germany, I could not have
focused on writing this study in the way I did. Institutions which I would
like to thank also include the Society for the Study of Theology in the UK
and the American Academy of Religion in the US. More than once, their
conferences allowed me to present my sometimes finished and sometimes
not-yet-finished thoughts to international and interdisciplinary audiences.
Of course, I am also grateful to St Benet’s Hall, Oxford. A place in transit
and in transformation, it turned out to be a space where I was met with
more encouragement than I could have hoped for. During my work on
this study, St Benet’s has exemplified the excellent and exciting environ-
ment for which the University of Oxford is renowned.
I am grateful that Brill allowed me to re-use material which I had pub-
lished elsewhere: ‘The Trouble with Trust in the Transcendent: Ernst
Troeltsch’s Reception of William James,’ in Religious Experience Revisited:
Expressing the Inexpressible?, ed. Thomas Hardtke, Ulrich Schmiedel and
Tobias Tan (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 187–206, as well as ‘Praxis or Talk about
Praxis? The Concept of Praxis in Ecclesiology,’ Ecclesial Practices: Journal
for Ecclesiology and Ethnography 3 (2016), 120–136. I am also grateful
to Phil Getz and Alexis Nelson in New York City, who spearheaded a
dedicated and diligent team at Palgrave Macmillan. It has been a pleasure
to work with them. I thank Mark D. Chapman and Gerard Mannion for
including my study in their captivating and compelling series.
Last—not least!—I am grateful to Hannah M. Strømmen. She has suf-
fered but survived countless conversations about church. She has taken
me to factual and fictional churches which I would not have dared to
enter without her. And she has distracted me whenever I ran the risk of
drowning in the depths of the elasticization of ecclesiology. To use a per-
formative–propositional formulation which will appear again and again
throughout my study, I cannot tell you how grateful I am!
This study is dedicated to my parents, Beate and Claus Schmiedel,
whose encouragement and entrustment enabled me to write it in the first
place. I wish I could discuss it with my father, who died before I started
studying theology. From my parents, I have learned both what it is like to
Acknowledgments ix
be an insider to the practices of church and what it is like to be an outsider

to the practices of church. And what it is to trust God inside and outside
churches.
Munich, May 2016 Ulrich Schmiedel

Abbreviations
Texts Written by Ernst Troeltsch*
AC The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions

AG Art. ‘Gnade Gottes, dogmatisch’
AK Art. ‘Kirche, dogmatisch’
BF Briefe an Friedrich von Hügel
BP Zur Bedeutung des Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen
Welt
CF The Christian Faith: Based on Lectures delivered at the University of
Heidelberg in 1912 and 1913
DR ‘The Dogmatics of the “Religionsgeschichtliche Schule”’
EM ‘The Essence of the Modern Spirit’
EP ‘Empiricism and Platonism in the Philosophy of Religion: To the
Memory of William James’
FV Fünf Vorträge für England und Schottland
GL Glaubenslehre: Nach Heidelberger Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1911
und 1912
HD ‘Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology’
HI Entry ‘Historiography’
HP Der Historismus und seine Probleme
*
Where available, I refer to the English translations of Ernst Troeltsch’s writings. Whenever
I refer to primary or secondary literature in German, the translations are my own unless
stated otherwise.
xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS
KG ‘Die Kirche im Leben der Gegenwart’

MO ‘My Books’
MÜ ‘Meine Bücher’
NL ‘Stoic-Christian Natural Law and Modern Secular Natural Law’
NR ‘Das stoische-christliche Naturrecht und das moderne profane
Naturrecht’
PE Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie in der Religionswissenschaft: Eine
Untersuchung über die Bedeutung der Kantischen Religionslehre für
die heutige Religionswissenschaft
PP Protestantism and Progress: The Significance of Protestantism for the
Rise of the Modern World
RI ‘Religiöser Individualismus und Kirche’
RP ‘Religionsphilosophie’
R1 Review ‘Religionsphilosophie und Theologische Principienlehre
(Jahresbericht 1896)’
R2 Review ‘Religionsphilosophie und Principielle Theologie
(Jahresbericht 1897)’
R3 Review ‘William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A
Study in Human Nature’
SH ‘The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus for Faith’
SK ‘Schleiermacher und die Kirche’
SL Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen
SP ‘The Social Philosophy of Christianity’
SR ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion’
ST The Social Teaching of the Christian Church
WD ‘What Does “Essence of Christianity” Mean?’
WH ‘Was heißt “Wesen des Christentums”?’
WL ‘Die wissenschaftliche Lage und ihre Anforderungen an die
Theologie’
WM ‘Das Wesen des modernen Geistes’
ZM ‘Die Zukunftsmöglichkeiten des Christentums im Verhältnis zur
modernen Philosophie’
ZR Review, ‘Zur Religionsphilosophie: Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige’
Contents
Introduction: Church(es) in Crisis1
Part I Religiosity 15
1 The Traces of Trust 19
2 The Drive for Difference 39
3 The Togetherness of Trust 67
Part II Community 99
4 The Construction of Community 105
5 The Attack on Alterity 129
6 The Promise of Plurality 147
xiii
xiv Contents
Part III Identity 175
7 The Trouble with Trust 179
8 The Power of Practice 197
9 The Elasticization of Ecclesiology 229
Conclusion: Crisis in Church(es)261
Bibliography273
Index 305
Introduction: Church(es) in Crisis
Churches are in crisis. Across Europe, Christian churches attract fewer

and fewer practitioners—in their pews and in their pulpits. Exemplified
by the Church of England,1 the statistics are shocking, projecting the loss
of practitioners to a point where church disappears in ‘a puff of smoke.’2
In England, the increase in female (often non-stipendiary) ministry cush-
ioned the decrease in male (often stipendiary) ministry, but current calcu-
lations clarify that the Church of England cannot keep up with the rapid
1
In my summary of the situation of the Church of England, I draw on the ‘Church Health
Check,’ a selection of studies which combines sociological and theological accounts of
Anglicanism in the UK. Published by The Church Times in 2014, the ‘Church Health Check’
attracted attention both inside and outside academia. Here, I refer to the compilation in
which the studies were collected, How Healthy Is the C of E? The Church Times Health Check,
ed. Malcolm Doney (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2014). The Church of England excellently
exemplifies the crisis of churches throughout Europe. As Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta
argue in their sociological study, Religion in der Moderne: Ein internationaler Vergleich
(Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2015), the loss of practitioners marks the practices of European
and non-European churches. This loss is dangerous for Christianity because, empirically,
communities like churches are indispensable for the vitality of religion. See esp. ibid.,
473–475.
2
Linda Woodhead, ‘Time to get serious,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?, 14.
© The Author(s) 2017 1

U. Schmiedel, Elasticized Ecclesiology, Pathways for Ecumenical and
Interreligious Dialogue, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40832-3_1
2 INTRODUCTION: CHURCH(ES) IN CRISIS
and radical loss.3 Since practitioners are deserting the practices of church,
the Church of England is confronted with its ‘extinction.’4
The shocking statistics are but a symptom of the contentions, con-
tradictions and conflicts which characterize the current crisis of churches
across Europe. In this study, I take this crisis as a point of departure to
offer a critical and constructive account of church as opened and open
community. The theme of my study is ecclesiology, the topic of my study
is the concept of community and the thesis of my study is that the com-
munities which constitute church need to be elasticized in order to engage
the other.
In the Church of England, ecclesiologists with both sociological and
theological expertise recommend transforming church into a ‘franchise.’5
Interpreting diversification as the reason and de-diversification as the reac-
tion to the current crisis of churches, these ecclesiologists argue that this
‘enfranchisement’ allows for a combination of different and distinct com-
munities under a common conception of church. The model of the fran-
chise, then, has been developed in order to cope with the diversification
of ways of life so characteristic of modernized and modernizing contexts.6
Instead of coercing Christians who prefer to practice church this way into
that congregation and Christians who prefer to practice church that way
into this congregation, the Church of England should, according to the
model of the franchise, enable and equip Christians to practice church in
their preferred way. This strategy of ‘amicable separation’7 would com-
Linda Woodhead, ‘Not enough boots on the ground,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?, 50.
3
Woodhead, ‘Time,’ 14.

4
5
Linda Woodhead, ‘A remedy for an ailing church,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?, 118. See
also ibid., 119–120.
6
Diversification is the core characteristic of modernized and modernizing contexts. For
David Tracy, these contexts are so diversified that ‘we live in an age that cannot name itself.’
David Tracy, ‘On Naming the Present,’ in David Tracy, On Naming the Present (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 1994), 3. Hence, regardless of whether the current context of church is called
‘modernity’ or ‘postmodernity,’ it is a diversified and diversifying context. See Gerard
Mannion, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity: Questions for the Church in Our Time (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 8–24. Mannion focuses on the neutralization of difference
through exclusion. See the contributions to Ecclesiology and Exclusion: Boundaries of Being
and Belonging in Postmodern Times, ed. Dennis M. Doyle, Timothy J. Furry and Pascal
D. Bazzell (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2012), which discuss his ecclesiology. I aim to argue that
difference can be neutralized through both inclusion and exclusion. See esp. Chap. 6 of my
study.
7
Woodhead, ‘A remedy,’ 117.
INTRODUCTION: CHURCH(ES) IN CRISIS 3
partmentalize the Church of England into communities characterized

by coherence and consistence, connected by a comprehensive ‘Anglican
identity.’8
By diverging into different and distinct communities, the Church of
England could control diversification.9 While the strategy appears to de-
diversify church on the intra-congregational level and diversify church on
the inter-congregational level, it actually aims to avert exposure to differ-
ence. The assumption of the ‘enfranchisement’ is that in order to cope
with diversity one must neutralize the difference in one’s proximity, so
as not to be confronted or challenged by it. The rationale behind the
strategy of amicable separation is easily explained: communities in crisis
close ranks.10 However, the current crisis of churches is more complicated
and more complex than those ecclesiologists contend who concentrate
on coherent and consistent communities which compete on a market of
religious and non-religious ways of life.11
Etymologically, crisis comes from ‘kρίσις’—a situation which demands
a tough decision: either this way or that way.12 Hence, the interpretation
of the situation of church as crisis tacitly transports what can and what can-
not count as the recommended reaction to the situation—a tough decision
is demanded to demarcate who is inside the community and who is out-
side the community. If diversification is seen as the process which causes
8
The contributors to the ‘Church Health Check’ refer to the ‘identity’ of Anglicanism
repeatedly, albeit without describing or defining it. See How Healthy Is the C of E?, 16, 26,
30, 37, 97, 104, 105, 116, 150.
9
Thus, the compartmentalization of church is indebted to the ‘homogenous unit princi-
ple,’ proposed by missiologists in the 1970s. See Martyn Percy, Shaping the Church: The
Promise of Implicit Theology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 77–78, who snippily summarizes
this principle as ‘like attracts like,’ stressing that the principle runs the risk of legitimizing
‘ageism, sexism, racism, classism and economic divisiveness.’
10
See also the critical considerations of Maggi Dawn, ‘Read the signs of the times,’ in How
Healthy Is the C of E?, 151–153. Such closure characterizes both ecclesial and non-ecclesial
communities which conceive of themselves in crisis. See Hartmut Rosa et al., Theorien der
Gemeinschaft: Zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2010), 54–65, 91–115. See also Chaps. 5
and 6 of my study.
11
The concentration on competition is also criticized within the ‘Church Health Check,’
see esp. Martyn Percy, ‘It’s not just about the numbers,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?,
127–130. See also his piercing and provocative thought experiment, ‘Faith in the Free-
Market: A Cautionary Tale for Anglican Adults,’ in Martyn Percy, The Ecclesial Canopy
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), 197–204.
12
For the history of the concept of crisis, see Reinhard Koselleck, ‘Crisis,’ Journal of the
History of Ideas 2 (2006), 357–400.
the crisis, de-diversification is seen as the program which could control the
crisis. Yet the interpretation of the situation of church as crisis is neither
sociologically nor theologically neutral—nor are the statistics which are
used to bolster and back this interpretation. In order to think through a
church in crisis, the ecclesiologist has to assume a concept of a ‘normal’
church and in order to think through a ‘normal’ church, the ecclesiolo-
gist has to assume a concept of a church in crisis. But whatever else the
history of ecclesiology emphasizes, it exposes that churches are always
already in crisis.13 The crises of church evoked the thinking and the talking
about church commonly called ecclesiology.14 Throughout the history of
Christianity, conceptualizations and re-conceptualizations of church have
been at stake. Hence, crisis is the norm and the norm is crisis. It might not
be the church that is in crisis but the crisis that is in the church.
Empirically, it is striking that the practitioners who leave their church
commonly criticize it not for being ‘church,’ but for not being ‘church.’15
Their critique aims at a church which appears to be concerned with its
survival rather than with its service. What, then, characterizes the crisis
of churches throughout Europe? Are the statistics pointing to churches
rapidly losing their practitioners or to practitioners rapidly losing their
churches? What could the practices of church look like in a diversified and
diversifying situation? What should the practices of church look like in a
diversified and diversifying situation? What indeed is church?
In my study, I respond to these questions by conceptualizing ‘church’
as an opened and open community which engages the other. Who is the
other? ‘Alterity,’ the otherness of the other, is a controversial concept with
13
Already Paul’s ecclesiology is articulated in response to the crises of the communities
which he founded (1 Cor. 3:1–23; 10:14–22; 12:1–31; 2 Cor. 5:11–21; Rom. 6:1–11). For
the crises in the history of ecclesiology, see Roger D. Haight’s trilogy, Christian Community
in History, 3 vols. (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
14
Natalie K. Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology (London: Sheffield Academic Press,
2002), 4: ‘Ecclesiology as a theological discipline was born out of a historical need, a situa-
tion which made it necessary for the church to define itself.’ Watson uses the concept of
‘crisis’ to describe this situation (ibid., 4–5).
15
See Woodhead, ‘Time,’ 17–18, where she points to a generational gap between those
who confirm and those who criticize the Church of England. See also Robert Warner, ‘Why
young people turn their backs on church,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?, 25–27. Philip
Giddings, ‘Listening out for the laity’s voice,’ in ibid., 55–58, argues that a ‘persistent cleri-
calism’ in the Church of England has prevented the church from considering its internal and
external critics (ibid., 55).
a checkered career in philosophy and theology.16 Hermeneutically, the

other signals difference: culturally, socially, politically or sexually, alter-
ity differs from identity. In his trilogy, ‘Philosophy at the Limit,’ Richard
Kearney points to the pitfalls in the construction of such difference17:
‘if others become too transcendent’ and ‘if others become too imma-
nent,’ one cannot relate to them.18 ‘The trick is therefore,’ he contends,
‘not to let the foreign become too foreign or the familiar too familiar.’19
Throughout my study, I conceive of alterity as a relational rather than a
non-relational concept: the other is other in relation. For Kearney, experi-
ences of alterity ‘bring us to the edge.’20 Frequently, the other is defined
in terms of the self and the self is defined in terms of the other. Because
identity and alterity are intimately and inextricably interwoven, the other
is experienced as ambiguous.21 Alterity provokes both attraction and aver-
sion. Experientially, the other is risky, blurring the boundaries between
what is controllable and what is uncontrollable. In order to uncover who
or what the other is, one has to relinquish control, acknowledging and
accepting the risk of encountering and engaging alterity.22 I wager that the
16
For a short history of the notion of alterity in philosophy and theology, see Pamela
S. Anderson, ‘The Other,’ The Oxford Handbook of Theology and Modern European Thought,
ed. Nicholas Adams, George Pattison and Graham Ward (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), 83–104. Anderson tells a story which ‘lacks a happy ending’ (ibid., 101), suggesting
that ‘it would be altogether better if theologians were to reject … the pernicious category of
otherness’ (ibid., 102). While I agree with Anderson that ‘the other’ is difficult to describe
and to define, I aim to argue that these descriptive and definitional difficulties provide a
promising point of departure for the interdisciplinary combination of theology and sociol-
ogy. See esp. Chap. 3 of my study.
17
The trilogy, ‘Philosophy at the Limit,’ consists of The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics
of Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), On Stories (London:
Routledge, 2002), and Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (London:
Routledge, 2003). See also Richard Kearney, Anatheism: Returning to God after God (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2011), esp. 17–39, where Kearney also analyzes scenes in
the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions in which the creator is encountered through the
creature. Arguably, Kearney understands ‘the other’ as a sacrament.
18
Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters, 11.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid., 3.
21
Ibid., 12–20.
22
Kearney argues that the difference between others deserving hospitality, on the one
hand, and others not deserving hospitality, on the other hand, needs to be defined. See ibid.,
esp. 83–108, 191–212. However, he downplays that one has to engage the other in order to
define such a difference. The risk of alterity can be neither escaped nor erased. See the
account of the trouble with trust in Chap. 7 of my study.
alterity of what I call the finite other (which is to say, the creature) and the
alterity of what I call the infinite other (which is to say, the creator) could
and should be at the core of the practices of church.23 I aim to argue that
the practices of church are about engaging rather than disengaging the
otherness of the other. 24 By ‘practice,’ I mean a combination of actions
and reflections on actions.25 In churches, these combinations of actions
and reflections could and should revolve around relationality. Through
the practices of church, practitioners relate to the finite and to the infinite
other. Church is where relations to the finite other intersect with relations
to the infinite other in Jesus Christ.26 Since relations are always already
relations to the other, alterity is vital for the practices of church.
For the conceptualization of the community of church, the engage-
ment with the other is of sociological and of theological importance: the
sociological closure of the church against the finite other might evoke
theological closure against the infinite other as much as theological clo-
sure against the infinite other might evoke the sociological closure of the
church against the finite other. Described differently, the engagement
with the finite other might enable the practitioners of church to encounter
23
Throughout my study, I use the terminology of ‘finite other’ and ‘infinite other’ to sig-
nal the difference between creator and creature, because I aim to argue that the exposure to
both others—the finite and the infinite—involves transcendence. Terminologically, I follow
Friedrich Schleiermacher, who, in On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, trans.
Richard Couter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), argued that religion is
characterized by the relation between the finite and the infinite. For Schleiermacher, ‘infinity’
has more than a mathematical meaning: it is open to one’s ‘intuition’ (ibid., 13). See ibid.,
23–26, 45–48, 59–70, 89–95, 115–118.
24
Anna Strhan, ‘What do we believe?,’ in How Healthy Is the C of E?, 33–35, points to the
alterity of both the finite and the infinite other as a core concern in the practices of church.
25
The concept of practice to which I refer throughout my study relates to the Greek con-
cept of πρᾶξις. For a short summary of this concept, see Kearney, On Stories, 130. Like
Kearney, I use the spelling of ‘practice’ rather than the spelling of ‘praxis’ for the sake of
consistency with the literature consulted throughout my study.
26
The characterization of church through the interrelation of the relation to the finite
other with the relation to the infinite other is, of course, not uncontroversial. It could be
considered a translation of the definition of church advanced by the Reformation. For the
Reformers, the church is where the Gospel is communicated. See ‘The Augsburg Confession
(1530),’ article VII, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 32. Throughout
my study, I conceive of such communication not as a ‘describing’ of the Gospel but as a
‘doing’ of the Gospel. If the Gospel is done rather than described, its communication engen-
ders relations to the finite and to the infinite other. As will be argued in Chap. 4, the concern
for these interrelated relations can be traced back to the practice of Jesus.
the infinite other and the engagement with the infinite other might enable
the practitioners of church to encounter the finite other. The connection
between these others will be investigated throughout my study. Thus, I
aim to offer a critical and constructive account of church as opened and
open community—a church which is open(ed) to the other.
For my account, I have chosen Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923) as
interlocutor. Troeltsch was without doubt a prominent and provocative
thinker. Trained as a theologian, he combined the theological with the
non-theological fields of the humanities, focusing on philosophy, sociol-
ogy and theology.27 Eventually, he took up a professorship of philosophy
at the University of Berlin which allowed him to continue his forays into
these fields. He repeatedly referred to this professorship as ‘tailor-made’
for him.28 Thus, Troeltsch has defied labeling—in the past and in the pres-
ent. His polyphonic thinking cannot be captured in philosophical, socio-
logical or theological one-liners.
Due to its concentration on history and historicization,29 Troeltsch’s
thinking has been characterized as the epitome of ‘liberalism.’30 The label
of liberalism earned him both respect and rejection.31 But given that
he criticized liberalism explicitly and expressively, it might be a misno-
mer.32 Troeltsch neither continued the thought of a school nor created
27
For Troeltsch’s biography, see Hans-Georg Drescher, Ernst Troeltsch: Leben und Werk
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1991), ET: Ernst Troeltsch: His Life and Work, trans. John
Bowden (London: SCM, 1992).
28
Drescher, Ernst Troeltsch, 216. The transfer from a professorship of theology to a profes-
sorship of philosophy does not mark his abandonment of theology (as past and present critics
of Troeltsch would have it). Theology remained important to Troeltsch’s thinking through-
out his life. See MO, 373–375. See also Mark D. Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal
Theology: Religion and Cultural Synthesis in Wilhelmine Germany (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001), esp. 1–12 and 161–186.
29
For the notion of historicism, see, with reference to both the philosophy and the theol-
ogy of Troeltsch, John H. Zammito, ‘Historicism,’ in The Oxford Handbook of German
Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Michael N. Forster and Kristin Gjesdal (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015), 779–805.
30
For the reception of Troeltsch’s thought, see the comprehensive contextualization by
Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 1–12.
31
Ibid.
32
See KG, 101–102, for Troeltsch’s critique of ecclesial liberalism and FV, 178–181, for
Troeltsch’s critique of political liberalism. If Troeltsch is labeled a ‘liberal,’ ‘liberalism’ has to
be carefully defined or re-defined in a way which incorporates Troeltsch’s critique of liberal-
ism. See Jörg Lauster, ‘Liberale Theologie: Eine Ermunterung,’ Neue Zeitschrift für
Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 49/3 (2007), 291–307. See also Friedrich
the thought of a school. On the contrary, he advocated thinking beyond

the dogmatism of schools, whether it came in a liberal or in a non-liberal
guise.33 In his autobiographical account, ‘My Books,’ he announced
already at the outset: ‘I have no system.’34 Tentatively tracing the pos-
sibilities and the impossibilities for a systematization of his thought, he
argued that his thinking does not form a ‘system’ because it is both frag-
mentary and fragile.35 Troeltsch’s assessment of his work comes close to a
hermeneutical circle where the ‘system’ informs the trajectory of empirical
research and the trajectory of empirical research informs the ‘system.’36
Troeltsch’s thinking, then, is characterized by a hidden hermeneutics.37
For Troeltsch’s ecclesiology, both the fragmentation and the fragiliza-
tion of his system had crucial consequences. He considered himself not
a theologian for confessional churches but a theologian for those who
seek transcendence inside and outside churches: a theologian for ‘those
who are restless.’38 Thus, ecumenicity characterized Troeltsch’s thinking
prior to the formulation and the formalization of ecumenical ecclesiolo-
gies in the conversations between ecclesial functionaries.39 Building on
Troeltsch, an inter-denominational approach to ecclesiology will be taken
Wilhelm Graf, ‘What has London (or Oxford or Cambridge) to do with Augsburg? The
Enduring Significance of the German Liberal Tradition in Christian Theology,’ in The Future
of Liberal Theology, ed. Mark D. Chapman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 18–38.
33
AK, 102.
34
MO, 365. See also MÜ, 3: ‘Ich habe kein eigentliches System und dadurch unterscheide
ich mich von den meisten anderen deutschen Philosophen.’
35
MO, 365.
36
MO, 375–376.
37
The hidden hermeneutics in Troeltsch’s thought has been noticed by Gregory Baum,
‘Science and Commitment: Historical Truth according to Ernst Troeltsch,’ Philosophy of the
Social Sciences 1 (1971), 259–277, and Andrzej Pryzlebski, ‘Troeltschs Kultursynthese als
halbierte Hermeneutik,’ in ‘Geschichte durch Geschichte überwinden’: Ernst Troeltsch in
Berlin, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006), 137–153.
For a succinct summary of the hermeneutical circle, see Werner G. Jeanrond, Theological
Hermeneutics: Development and Significance (London: SCM, 2002), 5–6.
38
BF, 61. See also BF, 75, 115.
39
For a short history of ecumenicity, see Thomas F. Best, ‘Ecclesiology and Ecumenism,’
in The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, ed. Gerard Mannion and Lewis
Seymour Mudge (London: Routledge, 2008), 402–420. According to Gesa E. Thiesen,
ecclesiology must be done ecumenically today. Differences are apparent both intra- and inter-
denominationally which is why ecumenicity cannot be escaped. See the contributions to
Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World, ed. Gesa
E. Thiesen (London: T&T Clark, 2009).
throughout my study—an approach which is located in-between denomi-

nations so as to allow for critical and self-critical reflections on confessional
ecclesiologies.40
Moreover, both thematically and methodologically, Troeltsch’s think-
ing is pertinent and promising for conceptualizing church as open(ed)
community. Thematically, community was a core concern for Troeltsch,
sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly. Throughout his oeuvre,
he explored the conditions and the consequences of the construction of
ecclesial and non-ecclesial communities within modernized and modern-
izing contexts. But unlike so many of his colleagues and contemporaries,
he refrained from complaints about the collapse of community.41 His con-
cern was not how churches are dying but how churches are not dying.
Thus, Troeltsch’s thinking resonates with my thematic approach.
Methodologically, Troeltsch’s thinking was interdisciplinary, using
both sociology and theology. ‘Interdisciplinarity’ is admittedly anachro-
nistic in Troeltsch’s case because he worked prior to the demarcations of
sociology and theology into distinct disciplines. Considering the history of
sociological self-definitions over against theology and of theological self-
definitions over against sociology subsequent to Troeltsch,42 his account
of both disciplines is ‘undisciplined’: he approached both theology and
sociology without fear or favor. His location in-between sociology and
theology has raised suspicion: sociological scholars tend to find him too
theological and theological scholars tend to find him too sociological.
His combination of theology and sociology has even been considered a
40
Haight concludes his instructive and influential trilogy, Christian Community in History,
with what he calls ‘an essay in transdenominational ecclesiology’ (Haight, Christian
Community in History, vol. 3: ‘Ecclesial Existence,’ xi). Transdenominational ecclesiology,
he explains, ‘refers to an abstraction’ (ibid., 11) because its referent is not a concrete church.
Instead, its referent is constituted by those ‘elements’ which are shared by ‘all ecclesial exis-
tence’ throughout history (ibid.). While I appreciate Haight’s effort to emphasize ‘the pos-
sibilities for a mutual recognition of churches’ (ibid., 27; see also ibid., 270–292), I prefer an
inter-denominational approach to ecclesiology. The inter-denominational approach allows
the ecclesiologist to engage differences in and in-between denominations critically and self-
critically. Thus, recognition is sought in conversation and in conflict; it is not merely toler-
ated or transcended through the notion of a shared ecclesial existence.
41
For these complaints, see the summary by Gerard Delanty, Community (London:
Routledge, 2004), 7–23.
42
See esp. John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2006). The controversies stirred by the cooperation between theology and sociol-
ogy will be revisited in Chaps. 4, 5, 6.
maligned mixture, a ‘syndrome’ which has to be cured.43 Yet Troeltsch’s

interdisciplinary thinking is significant for the interpretation of church as
a practice which calls for sociological and theological accounts.44 Thus,
Troeltsch’s thinking resonates with my methodological approach.
Nonetheless, my conversation with Troeltsch comes with a crucial
caveat. My study is not a study of Troeltsch which focuses on the concept
of community. Rather, my study is a study of community which focuses
on Troeltsch’s concept. The difference is subtle but significant. It is sig-
naled in my concentration on the concept of community ‘after’ Troeltsch.
I aim to analyze, assess and augment Troeltsch’s thinking today—after
Troeltsch. Methodologically, my focus is precarious: I have to pose ques-
tions to Troeltsch which he neither asked nor answered. But the precari-
ous turn from what could be called a historical–critical examination of
Troeltsch’s oeuvre to what could be called a hermeneutical–constructive
exploration of Troeltsch’s oeuvre is instructive because it enables a creative
and critical conversation with him.45 It is rooted in Troeltsch’s approach to
the history of Christianity. Troeltsch analyzed the past in order to alter the
present: he was a theological activist rather than a theological archivist.46
43
William H. Swatos, ‘Weber or Troeltsch? Methodology, Syndrome, and the Development
of Church-Sect Theory,’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 15/2 (1976), 129–144.
See again, Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, esp. 89–100. For Milbank, Troeltsch is guilty
of both ‘liberalism’ and ‘positivism.’ Hence, Troeltsch is, in a way, the personification of what
Milbank argues against. See esp. Milbank’s introduction ‘Between Positivism and Liberalism,’
xi–xxxii. For a compelling critique of ‘Milbank’s Troeltsch,’ see Lori Pearson, ‘The Uses and
Abuses of Troeltsch in American Debates over Religion, Social Theory, and Theology,’ in
Religion(en) deuten: Transformationen der Religionsforschung, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf
and Friedemann Voigt (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 331–360.
44
For a discussion of this call, see Neil Ormerod, ‘Ecclesiology and the Social Sciences,’ in
The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, 639–654.
45
However, the hermeneutical–constructive account of Troeltsch’s thinking is rooted in
the historical–critical account of Troeltsch’s thinking. Since Troeltsch’s oeuvre has been
rediscovered as a ‘classic’ for both sociology and theology in the 1960s (a re-discovery which
took place primarily in English-speaking and secondarily in German-speaking countries), a
multitude of material has been published by now. Particularly Ernst Troeltsch, Kritische
Gesamtausgabe is significant for the scholarship on Troeltsch’s thinking. It is a collection of
all the texts written by Troeltsch in 20 (partly published and partly not yet published)
volumes.
46
See esp. SL. See also the contributions to Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren’: Studien zu ihrer
Interpretation, ed. Trutz Rendtorff and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (Gütersloh: Güterslohver
Verlagshaus, 1993), which underscore that Troeltsch’s studies of history where concerned
with the present as much as with the past. Trutz Rendtorff and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf,
‘Vorwort,’ in ibid., 9–10, point to the ‘zeitdiagnostische Züge’ in Troeltsch’s works. See also
Instead of abandoning his thinking to antiquarians, then, I aim to translate

and transpose it for today.
The argument which will be developed, discussed and defended
throughout my conversation with Troeltsch exemplifies the turn from a
historical–critical to a hermeneutical–constructive approach. As mentioned
above, I aim to argue that churches are to be elasticized in order to enable
a connection between the relation to the finite other and the relation to
the infinite other in the practices of church. For church to be church, it has
to be open to the other. The concept of elasticity is Troeltsch’s concept.
He referred to the ‘elasticized’—literally, ‘elastisch gemachte’—church
when he explained how contemporary churches ought to operate.47 For
Troeltsch, the concept of elasticity gestured toward a church which allows
for internal and external diversity. Etymologically, however, ‘elasticity’
captures more than the diversification of church. ‘Elasticity’ comes from
the Greek ‘ἐλαύνειν’ which means ‘to propel’ or ‘to project.’ Building on
Troeltsch, I aim to argue that the elasticization of ecclesiology implies that
church is propelled by encounters with the other. Encounters with the
finite and the infinite other, then, constitute church.
However, these encounters require a turn in the interpretation of the
identity of Christianity from what I call a propositional possession (an
identity which Christians can own) to what I call a performative project (an
identity which Christians cannot own). If Christianity revolves around the
interrelation of the relation to the finite other with the relation to the infi-
nite other, church defies complete conceptualization: it occurs performa-
tively rather than propositionally.48 In the practices of church, Christianity
is ‘done’ rather than ‘described.’ Thus, my study will culminate in the
interpretation of church as a ‘work in movement’—a work which is mov-
ing and moved by the finite as well as the infinite other.49 Hence, neither
Hans Joas, The Sacredness of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights, trans. Alex
Skinner (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013). Joas’s approach of ‘affirma-
tive genealogy’ is rooted in Troeltsch’s account of historicism (ibid., 97–139).
47
KG, 104.
48
Of course, my distinction between performativity and propositionality draws on John
L. Austin’s How To Do Things With Words? The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard
University in 1955, ed. James O. Urmson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962); it will be
discussed in Chap. 1.
49
The concept of ‘work in movement’ is taken from Umberto Eco, The Open Work, trans.
Anna Cancogni (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1889). See Chap. 9 of my study
for a detailed discussion.
the practices of the open church nor the reflections on the practices of
the open church can be captured completely. Nonetheless, church can be
practiced: performatively rather than propositionally, ever again and ever
anew. Thus, the elasticization of ecclesiology which I aim to advocate is
not a repetition but a response to Troeltsch’s interdisciplinary thinking—it
is articulated in critical and creative conversation with Troeltsch.
Since the current crisis of churches throughout Europe is the context
for my study, my conversation with Troeltsch concentrates on the con-
nected and controversial concepts which are vital in order to tackle this cri-
sis: ‘religiosity,’ ‘community’ and ‘identity.’ As exemplified by the debates
about the Church of England, these concepts tend to be taken as exclusive
rather than inclusive terms which keep the other outside.50 Yet, establish-
ing trust as a central category for sociology and theology, I aim to argue
that both the finite other and the infinite other are constitutive of the
religiosity, the community and the identity of Christian churches. Hence,
for the practices of church, plurality is a promise rather than a problem.
Part I on ‘religiosity’ will redefine the point of departure for ecclesiol-
ogy. I will argue that the ecclesiologist ought to start with the concept
of trust because ‘trust’ is crucial to characterize both the relations to the
finite other and the relations to the infinite other—the relations around
which the practices of church revolve. Exploring William James’s concept
of the experience of transcendence (Chap. 1) and Ernst Troeltsch’s recep-
tion of William James’s concept of the experience of transcendence (Chap. 2),
I will define trust as a relation to the other which is characterized by open-
ness to otherness. Transcendence, I aim to argue, might be experienced
when one encounters both the finite other and the infinite other in trust
(Chap. 3). Therefore, the other is vital for religiosity. The elasticization of
ecclesiology which emphasizes the interrelation of the relation to the finite
other with the relation to the infinite other requires a community which
provokes and preserves trust. In a togetherness of trust, a way of being
together which fosters and facilitates openness, one can learn to trust the
finite other by trusting the infinite other and to trust the infinite other by
trusting the finite other.
Part II on ‘community’ will examine Troeltsch’s tripartite typology of
community concepts in order to chart the contours of such a togetherness
of trust. By exploring and elaborating on the Troeltschian types of ‘eccle-
50
For case studies of ecclesiological exclusion, see again the contributions to Ecclesiology
and Exclusion.
siasticism,’ ‘sectarianism’ and ‘mysticism,’ I will investigate how ‘commu-

nity’ has been understood throughout the history of Christianity (Chap. 4).
I will apply Troeltsch’s typology to today’s sociology (Chap. 5) and to
today’s sociology of religion (Chap. 6) in order to argue that community
is commonly constructed at the cost of the other. In these constructions
of community, alterity—the otherness of the other—is instrumentalized
either for the bonding of a homogeneous identity or for the bridging of
a heterogeneous identity. Following the thrust of Troeltsch’s The Social
Teachings of the Christian Churches,51 I will conclude negatively rather
than positively by cautioning communities against closure. Turned from
the negative to the positive, the criterion for the elasticization of ecclesiol-
ogy is openness to otherness.
Part III on ‘identity’ will tackle the questions and the quandaries of
identity. After exploring how the togetherness of trust troubles any con-
ception of identity which closes community by separating those who count
as trustworthy insiders from those who count as non-trustworthy outsid-
ers (Chap. 7), I will scrutinize the turn to practice characteristic of cur-
rent ecclesiologies. Examining three ecclesiological examples, I will expose
how this turn to practice reintroduces those constructs of identity which
it rejected—constructs which seek a strict separation, amicable or not so
amicable, between insiders and outsiders (Chap. 8). Finally, I will return
to Troeltsch. By elaborating on Troeltsch’s seminal study, ‘What Does
“Essence of Christianity” Mean?,’ with the help of political philosophies of
performativity, I will suggest a turn in the construction of the identity of
Christianity—a turn from identity as a propositional possession to identity
as a performative project. Such a turn allows the community of church
to be opened and open to the other, thus engendering a togetherness of
trust (Chap. 9). My conversation with Troeltsch will conclude by describ-
ing and defining ‘church’ as an opened and open work in movement. It is
a work which is continuously constituted and continuously reconstituted
in performative practices of trust where relations to the finite other and
relations to the infinite other are connected.
Moving from ‘religiosity’ to ‘community’ to ‘identity,’ my study takes
a step back from the concrete conflicts which characterize the practices
of church in current contexts. I focus on the concept of community after
Troeltsch in order to expose and examine the arguments and the assump-
tions which are hidden in these conflicts. Such conceptual clarification
SL, 979–980.
51
brings Troeltsch’s thinking to bear on the controversies which revolve

around the construction of community in both sociology and theology
today, opening up innovative and instructive approaches to the investiga-
tion of the practices of Christianity past and present. Of course, the aim
of my study is not to reinvent the Christian church.52 Rather, the aim is to
offer a sociological–theological rationale for those open(ed) communities
which are already sporadically and spontaneously manifested in ecclesial
and non-ecclesial practices: communities which engage rather than disen-
gage the other.53 I aim to argue that the other is crucial for church. Hence,
I advocate more than the appreciation of the other through churches.54
Alterity is at the center of what the church is: there can be no church with-
out finite and infinite others.
52
Throughout my study, I concentrate on the communities which constitute Christianity.
However, as will be argued in the Conclusion, the difference between Christian and non-
Christian communities has to be relativized. If church is concerned with the other, it cannot
reduce alterity to the Christian other at the cost of the non-Christian other. For a compara-
tive account of the concept of community in the context of inter-religious conversations, see
Keith Ward, Religion and Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
53
In order to introduce the three parts of my study, I will offer vignettes about a congrega-
tion with which I celebrated a service. The ‘snapshots’ of the religiosity, the community and
the identity of this congregation cannot substitute ethnographic explorations of concrete
churches, but allow me to sketch what the elasticization of ecclesiology might look like in
practice. For the strategy of vignettes in the study of religion, see Graham Harvey,
‘Introduction,’ in Religions in Focus: New Approaches to Tradition and Contemporary
Practice, ed. Graham Harvey (London: Routledge, 2014), 1–10.
54
The appreciation of plurality is a core concern in current ecclesiologies. See esp. Haight,
Christian Community in History, vols. 1–3. While I agree with Haight, I aim to argue that
appreciation is not enough, because the other is vital for the practices of church.
PART I
Religiosity
I open the massive and monumental doors to the church. I have not been here
before, but I know that the church is where the Anglicans of the city meet. The
services are held in English (which is what brings me here)—not untypical for
congregations in what the Church of England calls the ‘Diocese of Europe.’
Inside, the church is dark and drafty. Since I arrived too early, I simply sit
down in one of the pews, listening and looking around as more and more
people arrive for the service.
Later, I will learn a lot about the community. The congregation, the min-
ister explains to me, was founded about 50 years ago. Throughout these years,
it has had an eventful history. The community changed its purpose, its per-
sonnel and its place. The church in which I am sitting, located in the center
of the city, has not been the community’s church from the beginning. The
community itself is small. Between 40 and 50 people make up the core of
the congregation. Throughout its history, there has been a minister—some-
times stipendiary and sometimes non-stipendiary—who coordinated their
activities. But only for 10 or 12 years has the minister been living in the city.
(Beforehand, ministers would commute there from time to time in order to
celebrate services.) Organizationally, the community is independent from the
Church of England. It has to secure its survival on its own which provokes,
as the minister argues, ‘an awareness of vulnerability’: the people are acutely
aware that their community could collapse if they do not take care of those who
belong and of those who do not belong to it.
16 PART I: RELIGIOSITY
Given the size of 40 to 50 people, the services are well attended: about 30
people are here today. The fact that the services are held in English draws
in people from diverse and distinct backgrounds. There are people from the
Americas, Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe. According to the minister,
most of the members of the congregation have a high level of education, but
the community is mixed ethnically, culturally, politically and economically.
It includes people of all ages who service together. (Since the community is so
small, it is impractical, if not impossible, to offer specific activities for specific
age groups such as teenagers.)
In the context of the city, the Anglicans offer a point of departure for ‘new-
comers,’ those who come into the city without coming from the country, and
are thus not able to speak the vernacular yet. English, however, is spoken by
everybody—up to a point. Once the newcomers have settled in, some of them do
and some of them do not stay with the congregation. In addition to the core of
the community, there are always a few who ‘drop in,’ tourists as well as trad-
ers who visit the city—and, today, also me.
The style of the service is what strikes me. According to the minister, the
services aim to evoke and expect a lot of congregational participation, par-
ticipation which deliberately differs from Sunday to Sunday: ‘neither “high
church” nor “low church” but “broad church”.’ Today, even the sermon calls
for participation. It is a communal sermon: we are reading passages from the
Gospel of Mark while moving through the church. A teenager reads the role
of Jesus. I have never seen a teenage Jesus before. But today Jesus is not only a
teenager. He is feminine. His skin is not white. And he has trouble reading.
The teenager stumbles through the passages from the Gospel, sometimes eras-
ing and sometimes embellishing the text. It is hard to follow. Nonetheless, she
is Jesus. The service offers a safe space where the teenage Jesus (en)trusts the
congregation as much as the congregation (en)trusts the teenage Jesus. ‘When
worship works well,’ the minister adds afterward, ‘people take more risks and
more responsibility in getting to know each other.’ The relations to the creature
and to the creator become ‘intimately intertwined.’ Thus, the safe space, cre-
ated through the communality of the sermon and the service, allows for an
experientially ‘thick’ celebration.
William James’s Gifford Lectures, The Varieties of Religious Experience:
A Study in Human Nature, delivered at the University of Edinburgh in
1901 and 1902, introduced the terminology of experience into the study
of religion.1 Since James, ‘experience’ is a term which cannot be easily
1
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, The
Works of William James, vol. 15, ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas
K. Skurupskelis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
PART I: RELIGIOSITY 17
evaded when one thinks and talks about religion.2 But the emphasis on
experience which followed in the wake of James has been criticized: expe-
rience is the core concern in the controversy between ‘liberal’ and ‘post-
liberal’ theologies.3 Arguably, liberals examine how experiential religiosity
produces religion, while postliberals examine how religion produces expe-
riential religiosity.4 What is at stake here is the definition of religion:
for liberals, religion is effectively a personal experience which provokes
expressions; for postliberals, religion is effectively a communal expression
which provokes experiences.5 Because religion is experienced personally
and expressed communally, liberals concentrate on ‘personalities’ while
postliberals concentrate on ‘communities.’6
Ecclesiology, then, is caught in a double-bind: either the ecclesiologist
starts with ‘experience’ (but then it is doubtful whether she will actually
arrive at a notion of community) or the ecclesiologist starts with ‘expres-
sion’ (but then it is doubtful whether she will actually arrive at a notion of
personality). Where does ecclesiology start then? The elasticized ecclesiol-
ogy which I will conceptualize throughout my study argues that the prac-
tices of church must allow persons to challenge ‘their’ communities and
2
For a succinct survey of the literature on experience, see Ann Taves, ‘Religious
Experience,’ in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 11, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit, MI: Thompson
Gale, 2005), 7736–7750. See also the contributions to Religious Experience: A Reader, ed.
Craig Martin and Russell T. McCutcheon with Leslie Dorrough Smith (Sheffield: Equinox,
2012).
3
For a detailed discussion, see John Allen Knight, Liberalism versus Postliberalism: The
Great Divide in Twentieth-Century Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
4
See George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal
Age (London: SPCK, 1984), 30–45, esp. 30, where he distinguishes between the liberal
model in which experiences produce religions and the postliberal model in which religions
produce experiences.
5
In as much as the term ‘religiosity’ refers to the personal while the term ‘religion’ refers
to the communal, both terms might be distinguished. However, since I will argue that the
experience of transcendence requires both the personal and the communal, I avoid such a
distinction. Following the primary and the secondary literature which I consult throughout
my study, I use both terms interchangeably.
6
Historically, the etymologies of ‘community’ and ‘personality’ have overlapped with the
etymologies of ‘collectivity’ and ‘individuality.’ Throughout my study, I use ‘collectivity’ and
‘individuality’ as exclusive concepts and ‘community’ and ‘personality’ as inclusive concepts.
Hence, there is no community without personalities and there is no personality without com-
munities. My usage is inspired by Rowan Williams, ‘The Person and the Individual: Human
Dignity, Human Relationships and Human Limits,’ Theos Annual Lecture (London: Theos,
2013).
18 PART I: RELIGIOSITY
communities to challenge ‘their’ persons. It must start, then, by defining

or redefining its start. The concept of trust, I will argue in the following
three chapters, allows for a concept of the experience of transcendence
which is neither merely personal nor merely communal, but both. Trust
is relational: it involves the other. Because trust is embodied in person-
alities and embedded in communities, it cuts across the double-bind in
which the controversy between liberalism and postliberalism has caught
ecclesiology.
CHAPTER 1
The Traces of Trust
The clash between liberalism and postliberalism revolves around the

‘experientialism’ of William James. In this chapter, I will examine James’s
account of experience, arguing that James’s circular conceptualization of
trust allows for a resolution of the controversy which has haunted eccle-
siology. Trust is relational, embodied in personalities and embedded in
communities.
I will proceed in three steps. In step 1, I will examine James’s circular
conceptualization of trust. In accordance with James, I will assess trust as
a relation to the other which is characterized by openness to otherness.
However, when James approaches language as a source of contamination
which turns pure experiences into impure expressions, he loses track of the
relationality of trust. Hence, I will offer a critical analysis (in step 2) and a
constructive assessment (in step 3) of James’s approach to language. Both
the analysis and the assessment have crucial consequences for the elastici-
zation of ecclesiology for which I advocate.

20 U. SCHMIEDEL
Trusting the Other
James introduces the concept of trust in a facetious but forceful response

to the wager presented by Blaise Pascal.1 Trust is central to James’s phi-
losophy of religion and to James’s psychology of religion.2 Crucially, he
characterizes trust as a ‘circle’ in which trust creates trust.3 Exploring his
account of Pascal’s famous–infamous wager,4 I will argue that transcen-
dence is at the core of the Jamesian circle of trust.
According to Pascal, the existence of God can be neither proven nor
disproven by empirical evidence because God escapes the empirical.5 Since
one cannot know whether God does or does not exist, Pascal analyzes
belief and non-belief as a matter of choice: ‘What will you wager?’6 One’s
choice, Pascal adds, ought to be anchored in the consequences of belief or
non-belief. Admittedly, if God does not exist, there are no consequences.
Yet if God does exist, there are consequences—namely, God’s reward for
believers and God’s retribution for non-believers. ‘If you gain, you gain
all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation.’7
1
William James, ‘The Will to Believe,’ in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy, The Works of William James, vol. 6, ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers
and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 13–33.
2
For the terminology of trust, see esp. William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays
in Popular Philosophy, 19, 28–29, 40–42, 49, 51–54, 76. In The Varieties, James repeatedly
refers to ‘trust.’ See esp. ibid., 42, 44–45, 84, 200, 229–230, 257, 261, 286–287, 296–297,
299, 356–358, 376, 413. Given the statistical significance of ‘trust’ in James’s oeuvre, it is
puzzling that his conceptualization of trust has, as far as I can ascertain, not been studied.
For a commendable exception, see Hartmut von Sass, ‘Vorgängiges Vertrauen –
Nachdenklicher Glaube: Eintheologischer Essay zu Rudolf Bultmann und William James,’
Hermeneutische Blätter 1 (2010), 52–66, who indicates that James might be instructive for
the theorization of trust today.
3
See William James, Some Problems of Philosophy, The Works of William James, vol. 7, ed.
Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1979), 115–116.
4
Blaise Pascal, Pensées. With an Introduction by Thomas S. Eliot, trans. William F. Trotter
(New York: Dutton, 1958).
5
‘Transcendence’ is a notoriously nebulous notion. If it is defined through the contradis-
tinction of ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence,’ then transcendence is by definition beyond
immanence. See Johann Figl, ‘Transcendence and Immanence, Religious Studies,’ in
Religion Past and Present, vol. 13, ed. Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski
and Eberhard Jüngel (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 63. I am critical of the categorical contradistinc-
tion between immanence and transcendence. See Chap. 3 of my study.
6
Pascal, Pensées, 66.
7
Ibid., 68.
THE TRACES OF TRUST 21
James, however, is not convinced: ‘stupefy your scruples,’ he snip-

pily summarizes the wager.8 For James, its conditions are fundamentally
flawed, because neither belief nor non-belief can be captured as cognitive
calculations of risks and rewards. James argues that belief and non-belief
are ‘passional,’ anchored in the passions which cannot be controlled by
calculations.9 Religiosity precedes these calculations, it is pre- rather than
post-argumentative.10
In response to Pascal’s wager, James discusses trust—as far as I can
ascertain, he never defines it—by painting a picture of interpersonal attrac-
tion11: ‘Do you like me?’12 For James, the answer depends on both your
attitude toward me and my attitude toward you. It is not a matter of
empirical evidence which could be gathered through objective observa-
tion. But if we meet each other ‘half way,’ I might contribute to your lik-
ing of me as much as you might contribute to my liking of you.13 Hence,
when I flirt with you, I always already operate on the assumption that
you like me; when you flirt with me, you always already operate on the
assumption that I like you. Our flirtation lies in the play between us, you
acting as if you knew I like you and I acting as if I knew you like me.
Elsewhere, James offers a conceptual account of the attraction between
persons, elaborating on the ‘circle’ of ‘trust’ in which ‘we … jump with
both feet off the ground … towards a world of which we trust the other
parts to meet our jump.’14 James’s metaphor of the ‘jump’—a metaphor
which I will return to throughout my study—accentuates the vulnerability
8
James, ‘The Will to Believe,’ 16.
9
Ibid., 11 (my emphasis). Ibid., 15–16, 20–21, 24–25, 31. Terminologically, James is
ambiguous: sometimes he does and sometimes he does not distinguish between the term
‘faith’ and the term ‘belief.’ The German ‘Glaube,’ which will become important in my
analysis of Troeltsch’s reception of James in Chap. 2, draws no distinction between these two
terms. Thus, I use both of them interchangeably.
10
The interpretation of faith as pre-argumentative rather than post-argumentative is a core
concern in Hans Joas’s analysis of James’s approach to religion. See Hans Joas, The Genesis of
Values, trans. Gregory Moore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 35–53. As
Pascal admits at the close of his Pensées, neither belief nor non-belief can be created by argu-
ments (Pascal, Pensées, 68).
11
For a succinct summary, see Joas, The Genesis of Values, 43. See also Charles Taylor,
Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2002), 45–46.
12
13
Ibid., 24.
14
Ibid., 28.
22 U. SCHMIEDEL
which one has to accept in order to trust the other.15 Because the other
might fail to reciprocate—you might not appreciate my advances, return-
ing my flirtations with a resounding slap—trust runs the risk of disap-
pointment. It evokes a curious combination of feelings of security and
insecurity. Trust, then, has to do with the transcendence of the other—the
other who transcends my calculations and my control. Accordingly, James
assesses trust as ‘previous,’16 ‘preliminary’17 and ‘precursive.’18 ‘It is only
by risking our persons … that we live at all.’19
James operates with a two-track concept of trust: ‘trust’ captures the
as-if assumption (which allows for the relation) and the relation (which
allows for the as-if assumption).20 For James, the as-if assumption, embod-
ied ‘in’ the trusting persons, might create the relation of trust; and the
relation of trust, embedded ‘in-between’ the trusting persons, might cre-
ate the as-if assumption. Relationality is indispensable.21 In correspon-
dence with James, then, I conceive of trust as a relation to the other which
is characterized by openness to otherness. I deliberately leave undefined
whether the ‘other’ refers to the creator or to the creature, because James
tacitly transforms the ‘other’ in his response to Pascal’s wager.22
15
Here, James anticipates Annette Baier’s concept of trust as ‘accepted vulnerability to
another’s possible but not expected ill will.’ See Annette Baier, ‘Trust and Antitrust,’ Ethics
96/2 (1986), 235. I will return to the concept of vulnerability in Chap. 9.
16
James, ‘The Will to Believe,’ 28. Here, James uses ‘trust’ for faith and ‘faith’ for trust.
However, these terms are not always interchangeable, because, according to James, trust is
the center of faith. See The Varieties, 200.
17
18
James, Some Problems of Philosophy, 116.
19
James, ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ in The Will to Believe, 59.
20
See Joas, The Genesis of Values, 43, who points to the significance of the ‘advance in faith’
in James’s concept of the circle of trust. Crucially, in the German original Joas uses the con-
cept of trust when he interprets the advance in faith as ‘Vertrauensvorschuss.’ See Hans Joas,
Die Entstehung der Werte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997), 71.
21
To take James’s stress on the relationality of trust into account would be particularly
pertinent for today’s trust theories in which trust is increasingly individualized. For a critique
of the individualization of trust, see Ingolf U. Dalferth and Simon Peng-Keller,
‘Kommunikation des Vertrauens Verstehen: Hermeneutische Annäherung,’ in
Kommunikation des Vertrauens, ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Simon Peng-Keller (Leipzig:
Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012), 19–20. See also Martin Hartmann, Die Praxis des
Vertrauens (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2011).
22
What connects the experience of trust in the creator to the experience of trust in the
creature is that the one who is trusted cannot be controlled by the one who trusts. See James,
‘Is Life Worth Living,’ 57. Matthias Jung, Erfahrung und Religion: Grundzüge einer herme-
neutisch-pragmatischen Religionstheorie (München: Alber, 1999), 198–199, criticizes James’s
In Pascal, the one who is trusted is the creator, the infinite other.
Because the infinite other is beyond control, the relation to the creator
cannot be rooted in empirical evidence. In James’s response to Pascal, the
one who is trusted is the creature, the finite other. Because the finite other
is beyond control, the relation to the creature cannot be rooted in empiri-
cal evidence. James’s substitution of the creator with the creature stresses
that both of them are seen as transcendent. The other is other—which
is to say, she is beyond calculation and control.23 She is ultimately unde-
termined and ultimately undeterminable by my knowledge of her: she
surprises me. For James, the experience of transcendence has to do with
being surprised. How ought one to react to the surprise? According to
Pascal, one ought to react with mistrust.24 According to James’s response
to Pascal, one ought to react with trust. Following James, then, transcen-
dence might be experienced in the exposure to the other—when the other
is the finite creature and when the other is the infinite creator. When I
relate to the other in trust, I allow her to surprise me. Trust is a way to
relate to a transcendence which transforms me.25
Charles Taylor argues that James’s interpretation of Pascal’s wager cap-
tures the controversy between believers and non-believers under the con-
ditions of modernity.26 James charts the contours of the ‘open space where
you can feel the winds pulling you, now to belief, now to unbelief.’27
‘Standing in the Jamesian open space requires that you … can actually feel
turn from non-religious trust in the creature to religious trust in the creator. He argues that
the relation to the finite other is independent of the subject, while the relation to the infinite
other is dependent on the subject. Yet, Jung neglects that the one who trusts can control
neither the finite trusted one nor the infinite trusted one. Thus, James is correct when he
argues that trust might be disappointed, regardless of whether the one who is trusted is finite
or infinite.
23
Incidentally, James’s analogical logic is already apparent in Friedrich Schleiermacher,
who argued that the absolute dependence denoting the creator was analogically related to
partial dependence denoting the creature. See Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith,
trans. Hugh R. Mackintosh and James S. Stewart (London: T&T Clark, 1991), 14–16.
24
Terminologically, ‘mistrust’ (an unintentional lack of trust) and ‘distrust’ (an intentional
lack of trust) might be distinguished from trust. See Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und
Hoffen: Orientierungs weisenim Glauben,’ in Gottvertrauen: Die ökumenische Diskussion um
die fiducia, ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Simon Peng-Keller (Freiburg: Herder, 2012), 412.
25
For the transformativity of transcendence, see my comparative combination of sociologi-
cal and theological concepts of transcendence in Chap. 3.
26
Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today, 58.
27
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 549.
24 U. SCHMIEDEL
some of the force of each opposing position.’28 As Taylor adds, James is

the ‘philosopher of the cusp.’29 On the cusp, one has to jump—because
neither God’s existence nor God’s non-existence can be proven by empiri-
cal evidence. Consequently, both the jump with ‘anticipatory confidence’
and the jump without ‘anticipatory confidence’ are risky.30 Taylor’s notori-
ous notion of ‘the immanent frame’ resonates with the risk of the Jamesian
open space31:
[M]y understanding of the immanent frame is that, properly understood, it

allows for both readings, without compelling us to either. If you grasp our
predicament without ideological distortion …, then you see that going one
way or another requires what is often called a ‘leap of faith.’32
Accordingly, the Jamesian jump is required for belief and for non-belief.
Life involves trust—a trust which James works against the ‘worshippers of
science.’33
To summarize, transcendence is at the core of the Jamesian circle of
trust in which the other transcends my evaluations and my expectations
of her. Trust, then, is a relation to the other which is characterized by
openness to otherness. In trust, I allow the other to transform me—a
transformation which might be triggered by the finite other as much as by
the infinite other. Since there is no evidence which rules out either belief
or non-belief, both belief in the existence of God and non-belief in the
existence of God are, strictly speaking, beliefs.34 Hence, for James, it is
neither simply non-religious to be rational nor simply non-rational to be
religious.35
28
Ibid.
29
Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today, 59.
30
Taylor, A Secular Age, 550–551, 674–675, 703, 833n 17, 844n 38, uses ‘anticipatory
confidence’ to characterize James’s concept of the jump. I will return to Taylor’s concept of
anticipatory confidence in Chap. 6.
31
See Taylor, A Secular Age, 539–593.
32
Ibid., 550.
33
James, ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ 49.
34
See William James, ‘The Sentiment of Rationality,’ in The Will to Believe, 76: ‘Faith
means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible; and as the
test of belief is willingness to act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the
prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.’
35
James anchors trust anthropologically. See ibid., 75–76. See also Joas, The Genesis of
Values, 43.
However, considering the Jamesian account of the circle of trust, there

is a difference between believing in the existence of God and believing
in the non-existence of God. If the mutual as-if assumption of trust cre-
ates the relation (and the relation creates the mutual as-if assumption of
trust), then the ‘only opportunity’ to make God’s ‘acquaintance’ is to
‘jump’ toward God in trust.36 The jump toward God is the core concern
of James’s Gifford Lectures.
Experiencing Trust
In his Gifford Lectures, The Varieties of Religious Experience, James
explores religion as experience of transcendence.37 Here, he introduces
the concept of trust in the context of a comparison between religious and
non-religious attitudes.38 Both attitudes, James concedes, might assume
the existence of God so that the difference between what is religious and
what is non-religious is not necessarily a ‘difference of doctrine.’39 Instead,
the emotions which accompany the doctrine make the difference.40
Repeatedly James refers to Job’s cry ‘Though he slay me, yet I will trust in
him!’ (Job 13:15) to exemplify the extreme emotions which mark a reli-
gious in contrast to a non-religious attitude.41 While I agree with James’s
difference between religious and non-religious attitudes, I will argue that
James’s account of experience forces him to draw a distinction between
the transcendence of the finite other and the transcendence of the infinite
other—a distinction which eventually evokes the individualization and the
interiorization of religiosity commonly criticized as experientialism.
36
37
See James, The Varieties, 34. Of course, James uses the concept of divinity here. However,
in order to include experiences of theistic and non-theistic religions, I deviate from James’s
usage. For a similar deviation, see Jörg Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung: Theologische
Hermeneutik Heute (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), 20–21.
Considering the diversity of approaches to the definition of religion in James’s oeuvre, such
a deviation is in line with James. For James’s approaches to religion, see Jeremy Carrette,
William James’s Hidden Religious Imagination: A Universe of Relations (London: Routledge,
2013).
38
James, The Varieties, 42.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid., 42, 68–69, 353.
26 U. SCHMIEDEL
It is puzzling that there is no definition of the concept of experience in

James’s Gifford Lectures.42 But in The Principles of Psychology, written over
the course of 12 years, James comes closer to a definition.43 ‘Experience’
is at the core of the notion of consciousness. For James, consciousness is
a ‘stream’ which continuously captures a subject’s internal and external
sensations.44 The subject selects a subset of data from the set of data in the
stream of her consciousness in order to experience data. Hence, experi-
ence is the result of the subject’s selection.45 The selection of data is not
without consequences—both in terms of what is selected (and thus expe-
rienced) and in terms of what is not selected (and thus not experienced):
The mind works on the data it receives … as the sculptor works on his block
of stone. In a sense, the statue stood there from eternity. But there are a
thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for
having extricated this one … Other sculptors, other statues from the same
stone.46
For James, then, experience is simultaneously a reaction and a construc-

tion.47 He stresses that this simultaneity is structured through language.
By ‘language,’ he means a system of signifiers in which a signifier desig-
nates a signified despite the difference between signifier and signified.48
The designation is decisive for experience: the term ‘signified’ e ncapsulates
42
For a critical and constructive account of James’s concept of experience, see Nicholas
Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God
(London: SCM, 1988), 9–17. A short summary is offered by Richard R. Niebuhr, ‘William
James on Religious Experience,’ in The Cambridge Companion to William James, ed. Ruth
A. Putnam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 214–236, who stresses that The
Varieties employs the concept of experience ‘rather loosely’ (ibid., 202). Niebuhr argues that
one has to take James’s whole oeuvre into account in order to understand his concept of
experience.
43
William James, The Principles of Psychology, 3 vols., The Works of William James, vols.
8–10, ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skurupskelis (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).
44
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, 233.
45
Ibid., 380 (emphasis in the original): ‘My experience is what I agree to attend to.’
Accordingly, James’s concept of consciousness captures what is conscious and what is non-
conscious. The difference between the conscious and the non-conscious is drawn through the
concept of experience.
46
Ibid., 278.
47
See Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 20–21.
48
the set of immediate data, while the term ‘signifier’ encapsulates the sub-
set of mediate data. Through designation, language mediates between set
and subset; it selects what is experienced from what is not experienced.
Language turns the stone into the sculpture.
However, James is strikingly suspicious of the turn from stone to sculp-
ture.49 To paraphrase his suspicion: when a subject is angry, she is angry;
but when a subject says ‘I am angry,’ language introduces a difference
between her and her anger. She is not in the state of ‘I-am-angry’; she is in
the state of ‘I-say-I-am-angry.’50 To mix up these states is branded as the
‘psychologist’s fallacy.’51 The difference between experience and expres-
sion, around which the psychologist’s fallacy revolves, runs through the
philosophy and the psychology of James.52 In The Principles of Psychology,
he draws a distinction between modes of knowledge which pairs with
the distinction between ‘immediate experience’ and ‘mediate experi-
ence.’ James argues that interpersonal encounters demonstrate that the
direct knowledge one gains through relations differs from the indirect
knowledge one gains through reflections: relation pertains to existential
acquaintance while reflection pertains to non-existential analysis.53 Again,
language points to the difference between both modes of knowledge.54
Eventually, in his posthumously published Essays on Radical Empiricism,
James employs metaphors of purity in order to emphasize the difference
language draws within experiences: ‘pure’ experience comes without a
49
See James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, 193–196, where James discusses language
as a source of error in psychology. See also ‘Thought Before Language: A Deaf-Mute’s
Recollection,’ in William James, Essays in Psychology, The Works of William James, vol. 13,
ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1983), 278–291, where James analyzes the reports of a deaf-mute
who learned to speak in order to defend the possibility of thought prior to language.
50
51
Ibid., 195.
52
James uses the concept of experience for both ‘mediate experiences’ and ‘immediate
experiences.’ Only occasionally does he reserve ‘experience’ for the immediate as opposed to
the mediate. See Niebuhr, ‘William James on Religious Experience,’ 215. In ‘Experience,’ in
William James, Essays in Philosophy, The Works of William James, vol. 5, ed. Frederick
H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1977), 95, James defines experience as ‘the entire process of phenomena,
of present data considered in their raw immediacy, before reflective thought has analyzed
them into subjective and objective aspects.’
53
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, 216–218. See also Niebuhr, ‘William James on
Religious Experience,’ 222–223.
54
28 U. SCHMIEDEL
istinction between set and subset, while ‘impure’ experience comes with
d
a distinction between subset and set.55 The metaphors of purity demon-
strate that James defines language as a source of contamination56: it trans-
forms the immediate experience which is gained through relations into the
mediate experience which is gained through reflections. Language turns
the pure into the impure.57
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, the suspicion toward language
is pushed to the extreme. According to James, mystical experiences—
experiences of a union between creature and creator—characterize the
core of religiosity.58 But these experiences are ineffable rather than effa-
ble59: the union can be experienced but the union cannot be expressed.
When it comes to God, the state of ‘I-say-I-trust-the-transcendent’ would
contaminate the state of ‘I-trust-the-transcendent’; expression would con-
taminate experience. Importantly, James’s interpretation of the experience
of transcendence implies that there are two modes of transcendence: the
transcendence of the finite other (a transcendence which is expressible)
and the transcendence of the infinite other (a transcendence which is inex-
pressible). Understanding the finite other in contrast to the infinite other,
then, James undermines his response to Pascal’s famous–infamous wager.
In conversation with Martin Luther, James applies his account of lan-
guage to the experience of trust. Following a theological trajectory which
can be traced to Augustine, Luther distinguished two dimensions of faith:
fides qua creditur or fiducia (the believing) and fides quae creditur or fides
55
William James, ‘A World of Pure Experience,’ in William James, Essays in Radical
Empiricism, The Works of William James, vol. 3, ed. Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skurupskelis
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 21–44. James turns from epistemology
to ontology when he argues that the linguistic subject–object distinction is introduced retro-
spectively, after the fall from the pure into the impure (ibid., 37). Accordingly, ‘subjectivity
and objectivity are functional attributes …, realized only when the experience is “taken” …
by a new retrospective consciousness.’ William James, ‘Does Consciousness Exist?,’ in Essays
in Radical Empiricism, 13. For a discussion of the shift from ontological dualism to onto-
logical monism which is implied by James distinction between pure experience without sub-
ject–object distinction and impure experience with subject–object distinction, see Jung,
Erfahrung und Religion, 168–169. Jung emphasizes that it is unclear why the distinction
between subject and object is introduced into the experience in the first place if it is not
anchored in what is experienced.
56
See Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 38–50.
57
For the implications of James’s ‘Reinlichkeitsmetaphorik,’ see Jung, Erfahrung und
Religion, 172–175.
58
James, The Varieties, 301–339.
59
Ibid., 302–303.
(the beliefs).60 For Luther, these dimensions were inextricably interwo-

ven. But since language is a source of contamination for James, he seeks
to extricate the inextricable. When he assumes that fides qua is essential
and fides quae is non-essential, he pairs ‘believing’ with the pure, ineffable
and immediate experience of transcendence which is established through
relations, whereas he pairs ‘beliefs’ with the impure, effable and medi-
ate experience of transcendence which is established through reflections.61
The essence of faith is conceived of as a ‘state of confidence’ in which the
creature and the creator are ‘at one.’62 James refers to the state of confi-
dence as ‘trust.’63 Trust, then, is fides qua rather than fides quae.
Echoing Luther, James emphasizes that the finite other ought to be
trusted conditionally while the infinite other ought to be trusted uncondi-
tionally.64 Emphatically, he explains the shift from conditional to uncondi-
tional trust through the concept of ‘selfsurrender.’65 With ‘selfsurrender,’
James aims to answer the dilemma of the genesis of faith. Who creates
trust? James answers that trust in the transcendent is experienced as a
being-chosen rather than a choosing.66 Nonetheless, both the finite other
and the infinite other are active in faith because it takes the self to surren-
der the self. The self surrenders the self. Thus, selfsurrender combines the
60
Luther uses fides for fides quae and fiducia for fides qua. ‘Fiducia’ translates as trust. Wolf-
Friedrich Schäufele, ‘Fiducia bei Martin Luther,’ in Gottvertrauen, 163–181, points out that
the concept is at the center of Luther’s account of faith, although ‘fiducia’ is, statistically
speaking, not a central concept for him.
61
James, The Varieties, 200. James refers to fides qua as ‘essential’ which means that fides
quae is non-essential. Since for Luther the term ‘fides’ does, whereas the term ‘fiducia’ does
not, include the object of faith, he adds the object—God—to ‘fiducia’ when it is used in
isolation from ‘fides.’ Hence, a separation of fides qua and fides quae is impossible in Luther’s
concept of faith. See Schäufele, ‘Fiducia bei Martin Luther,’ 166–168.
62
James, The Varieties, 200, refers to the research conducted by his contemporary and col-
league James Leuba. Jacob A van Belzen, ‘Was ist spezifisch an einer religiösen Erfahrung?
Überlegungenaus religions psychologischer Perspektive,’ in Religiöse Erfahrung: Ein inter-
disziplinärer Klärungsversuch, ed. Friedo Ricken (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2004), 40–55,
points out that the separation of fides qua and fides quae, or experience and expression, was
at stake in the discussion between James and Leuba. Van Belzen argues, following Leuba,
that both cannot be separated.
63
64
Ibid., 230. I will return to the distinction between unconditional and conditional trust
in Chap. 3.
65
James, The Varieties, 170–176, See also ibid., 69, 215, 250, 400.
66
Joas, The Genesis of Values, 51–52.
30 U. SCHMIEDEL
activity and the passivity of the self. Trust is neither created by the creature
nor by the creator—rather, it is co-created by both of them.67
However, as a consequence of the distinction James has drawn between
the effable experience of the transcendence of the finite other and the
ineffable experience of the transcendence of the infinite other, he separates
the relation to the creature from the relation to the creator. Because trust
in the creator is interpreted as incommensurable to trust in the creature,
James has to insist that the experience of the transcendence of the finite
other is independent of the experience of the transcendence of the infinite
other. God is experienced by solitary subjects.68 According to James, the
experience of God cannot be transmitted because the communication of
the experience entails the contamination of the experience through lan-
guage. James acknowledges that the communication of experience might
create a ‘pattern’—a pattern formed by the religious founder for the reli-
gious follower.69 But since the pattern is created through mediate expres-
sions rather than immediate experiences, the founders’ acquaintance turns
into the followers’ analysis: trust in the transcendent turns into talk about
trust in the transcendent. Thus, in the transmission from the ‘pattern set-
ter’ to the ‘set pattern,’ the state of I-trust-the-transcendent is turned into
the state of I-say-I-trust-the-transcendent ‘until all that remains is “dull
habit”.’70 Scornfully, James characterizes the religiosity of the followers
in contrast to the religiosity of the founder as ‘second-hand.’71 Religiosity
is rooted in the interiorized and individualized experience of a religious
‘genius.’72
67
Similarly, Troeltsch assumes that the decision either for the agency of the finite or for the
agency of the infinite in the genesis of faith is only to be made if the finite and the infinite are
separated in the first place. Although, for Troeltsch, the logical problem remains, he argues
that, in the experience of transcendence, the finite and the infinite are interrelated. See AG,
1470–1474.
68
69
Ibid., 15.
70
James, The Varieties, 15. See also Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today, 5.
71
James, The Varieties, 15, 33, 270. Jeremy Carrette, ‘Passionate Belief: William James,
Emotion, and Religious Experience,’ in William James and the Varieties of Religious
Experience: A Centenary Celebration, ed. Jeremy Carrette (London: Routledge, 2005),
79–93, traces James’s tacit acknowledgment of the sociality of religious experiences and of
religious emotions. Nonetheless, he concludes that James’s concern is individual psychology
rather than social psychology.
72
Ibid., 12. See ibid., 173. See also Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 44–46.
Through the individualization and interiorization of religion, James

attempts to defend persons from the pressure of communities.73 Through
their dogmatic domestications of trust, churches invent orthodox-
ies and heterodoxies in order to ‘excommunicate those whose trust is
different’.74 Against the dogmatization of religion, James demands the
de-dogmatization of religion: trust in the transcendent can be experienced
‘without a single dogma or definition.’75 Richard Rorty cleverly captures
James’s account of religion with the concept of romance.76 Romance
remains in a religion when fides qua replaces fides quae such that any con-
crete content is lost from the religion.77 ‘What matters is the insistence
itself—the romance.’78 Whether one approves or disapproves of the char-
acterization of James’s religion as romance,79 the conceptualization of lan-
guage as a source of contamination is at the core of his experientialism.
To summarize, James’s concept of experience forces him to give up on
the notion of the transcendence of the other with which he characterized
the circle of trust. The circle of trust pertained to both the finite and the
infinite others. Now, in his interpretation of religious as opposed to non-
religious experience, James separates trust in the finite other from trust in
the infinite other—non-religious experience comes with a transcendence
which can be expressed and religious experience comes with a transcen-
dence which cannot be expressed. As a consequence of the inexpressibility
of infinite transcendence, James isolates the relation to the creator from
the relation to the creature. Nicholas Lash concludes, ‘If James’s account
were correct, then the best way to prepare someone for the experience
73
See James, The Varieties, 6.
74
James, ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ 51. See also Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 52–60.
75
James, ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ 52.
76
Richard Rorty, ‘Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance,’ in The
Cambridge Companion to William James, 84–102. See also Richard Rorty, ‘Pragmatism as
Romantic Polytheism,’ in The Revival of Pragmatism, ed. Moris Dickstein (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1998), 21–36.
77
Rorty, ‘Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance,’ 93–94, 96.
78
Ibid., 97.
79
Richard Rorty’s concept of romance captures James’s separation of fides qua and fides
qua. However, Rorty’s stress on the relativism in both James’s philosophy and James’s psy-
chology might push the romance too far. For a critique of Rorty’s reading of James, which
concentrates on the concept of experience, see Martin Halliwell and Joel D. Rasmussen,
‘Introduction: William James and the Transatlantic Conversation,’ in William James and the
Transatlantic Conversation: Pragmatism, Pluralism and Philosophy of Religion (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014), 8–9.
32 U. SCHMIEDEL
of God would seem to be to abandon them, at birth, in some untracked

waste far from human habitation.’80 The reason for James’s separation of
the relation to the finite other from the relation to the infinite other is his
account of language as a source for the contamination of transcendence.
But does his account hold?
Expressing Trust
John L. Austin’s William James Lectures, How to Do Things with Words?,
published in 1955, announce a ‘revolution’81 in the account of language.
The revolution revolves around the ‘“descriptive” fallacy.’82 Austin brands
accounts of language which assume that language is describing rather than
doing things as ‘descriptive fallacy.’83 Although James is not mentioned in
Austin’s William James Lectures, I will attend to these Lectures in order
to argue that James’s interpretation of language falls for the descriptive
fallacy. In conversation with Rowan Williams’s 2013 Gifford Lectures,
published as The Edge of Words,84 I will chart the contours of a conceptu-
alization of language in which language is both ‘describing’ and ‘doing’
transcendence.
Austin argues that language is both ‘describing’ and ‘doing.’ Austin’s
core concern is to criticize the assumption that a statement has to describe
what it states such that the description can be characterized as either cor-
rect (when the ‘words’ describe the ‘world’ correctly) or incorrect (when
the ‘words’ describe the ‘world’ incorrectly). Against these assumptions,
Austin announces the performativity of language.85 Since statements like
‘I thank you’ are not ‘describing’ thanks but ‘doing’ thanks, these state-
ments are neither correct nor incorrect. Instead, Austin assesses them as
‘happy’ or ‘unhappy.’86
Austin’s conceptualization of performativity pinpoints a problem
in James’s account of language. For James, language is descriptive.
80
Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 58.
81
Austin, How To Do Things With Words?, 3.
82
Ibid.
83
Ibid., 5.
84
Rowan Williams, The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language (London:
Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
85
See James Loxley, Performativity (London: Routledge, 2007), 7–9.
86
See ‘Lecture II’ and ‘Lecture III’ in Austin’s How To Do Things With Words?, 12–24 and
25–38.
Since description introduces a distance between the describer and the

described,87 language is approached as a source of contamination: lan-
guage turns the pure into the impure because it breaks with immediacy.88
Translated into Austin’s terminology, James aims for a pure performance
of trust—a doing of trust which is not tainted by a describing of trust.
Austin had a similar intuition. He attempted to isolate utterances which
do things from utterances which describe things.89 But the attempt failed.
Austin had to admit that doing and describing cannot be separated because
‘the same sentence’ can be used ‘in both ways.’90 Consequently, one cannot
‘leave utterances as they stand.’91 One ‘must consider the total situation in
which the utterance is issued—the total speech act,’ consisting of the one
who speaks, the one who is spoken to, and the content of the speaking.92
Accordingly, Austin distinguishes between the locutionary force of
the utterance (the describing) and the illocutionary force of the utter-
ance (the doing)93: ‘[W]henever I “say” anything … I shall be performing
both locutionary and illocutionary acts.’94 Austin’s distinction echoes the
87
The concept of distanciation has been coined by Paul Ricoeur. Like James, Ricoeur
assumes that mediation implies distanciation. But, unlike James, Ricoeur argues that distan-
ciation allows for the understanding of that which has been mediated. Without distance
between the one who understands and the one who is understood, understanding is impos-
sible. See esp. Paul Ricoeur, ‘The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,’ in Paul Ricoeur,
Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, trans.
John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 131–144.
88
The interpretation of language as a ‘break with immediacy’ marks philosophy and theol-
ogy prior to the linguistic turn. See Steven Shakespeare, ‘Language,’ in The Oxford Handbook
of Theology and Modern European Thought, 105–126.
89
Jennifer Hornsby, ‘Speech Acts and Performatives,’ in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy
of Language, ed. Ernest Lepore and Barry C. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 902.
90
Austin, How To Do Things With Words?, 67.
91
Ibid., 67 (emphases in the original).
92
Ibid., 52.
93
Ibid., 101–102. See also, Loxley, Performativity, 15–19.
94
Austin, How To Do Things With Words?, 132. Eventually, Austin draws a distinction
between ‘locution,’ ‘illocution’ and ‘perlocution’ (ibid., 101–102) to capture the dimensions
of speech acts: locution refers to the describing of things, while illocution and perlocution
refer to the doing of things whereby ‘doing’ is distinguished according to the act (illocution)
and the consequence of the act (perlocution). For Austin’s detailed description of these three
dimensions, see ‘Lecture IX’ in ibid., 108–119. It is noteworthy that Austin offers no defini-
tion of locution. As he himself admits, locution is rather a negative than a positive category,
capturing what is neither illocutionary nor perlocutionary (ibid., 96). See also Hornsby,
‘Speech Acts and Performatives,’ 895–896.
34 U. SCHMIEDEL
difference between doing something and saying that one is doing some-
thing described by James. Yet, Austin distinguishes between dimensions
of utterances and utterances. Utterances like ‘I am grateful’—to return to
the example of thanksgiving again—are both ‘describing’ gratitude and
‘doing’ gratitude. Similarly, utterances like ‘I trust you’ are both describ-
ing trust and doing trust. It is James’s insistence on the strict separation of
the state of ‘I-trust-you’ and the state of ‘I-say-I-trust-you’ which makes
him fall for the descriptive fallacy.
Rowan Williams’s Gifford Lectures, The Edge of Words, undermine the
strict separation of doing and describing in James.95 Williams analyzes lan-
guage in order to map ‘a future of natural theology.’96 He argues that the
alternative between natural and non-natural theology is a false alternative.
Theologies frequently evade historical flux by concentrating on ahistorical
standards which are either natural (as opposed to revealed) or revealed (as
opposed to natural). But language is in flux. For the future of theology,
the eccentricities and extremes—‘the edges’—of language are instructive,
because these edges signify
the point at which we run out of things to say in the discourse we started
with but that this running out is not simply an ending … It is a different
kind of accuracy or adequacy that is called for, something that is not descrip-
tive in the usual sense.97
Although Austin is not explicitly engaged in these Lectures, Williams

is acutely aware of Austin’s revolution. His Lectures offer a compelling
critique of the account of language as ‘a mapping exercise.’98 According
to Williams, language is representation.99 Crucially, Williams’s concept
of representation implies that ‘ordinary’ talk about the finite other and
‘extraordinary’ talk about the infinite other cannot be strictly separated
(as James would have it). In both cases, language represents: talk makes
95
Ibid., 2–3.
96
Ibid., 1.
97
Ibid., 17.
98
Ibid., 22.
99
For his concept of representation, see the appendix to The Edge of Words, 186–197, in
which he traces conceptualizations of representation in philosophy and theology. However,
it seems to me that for Williams ‘representation’ is itself defined by what it is not rather than
by what it is. Williams writes: ‘I am once again—rather obviously—trying to avoid speaking
of a “world” beyond language, if only to avoid a not very helpful word/world dualism which
encourages us to think of language as the labelling of a passive environment’ (ibid., 92).
present what is talked about.100 Like James, Williams argues that language
introduces a difference between the represented and the representation.
But, unlike James, Williams argues that this difference is not destructive
but constructive for experience. The represented is re-presented in order
to make it present. Language is rather non-literal than literal, metaphor
is its métier. Language as representation, then, is a matter of imaginative
response rather than imitating repetition.101
Arguably, Williams applies Paul Ricoeur’s concept of distanciation to
the analysis of relations to the other.102 Representation, he insists, implies
a relation between the knower and the known in which the known is active
rather than passive—‘active “beyond” the grasp of the knower.’103 Here,
Williams points to the otherness of the other. He uses ‘trust’ to under-
stand ‘how speech works’ in the relation to the other.104
The fact that we work on our words in such a way that we come to trust
one another, to be confident that what we are talking about is what another
speaker is talking about, so that we can negotiate shared activities – this tells
very seriously against the idea that ‘describing things as we please’ could be
a constitutive strategy of our language.105
Language requires trust: I trust that my speech is intelligible to the other

(which means that it has effects on her); the other trusts that her speech is
intelligible to me (which means that it has effects on me).106 Trust enables
metaphorical edges and metaphorical extremes. James reduces language
to description because he neglects that trust is always already operative in
language.107
100
Ibid., 22.
101
Ibid., 163.
102
See again Ricoeur, ‘The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,’ 131–144. Williams
echoes Ricoeur’s concept of distanciation, although Ricoeur is not explicitly engaged by him.
103
Williams, The Edge of Words, 31.
104
Ibid., 113.
105
Ibid., 41.
106
Ibid., 113–114.
107
There are different concepts of trust at work here. Williams seems to define trust as a
practical attitude. James, as mentioned above, operates with a two-tracked concept of trust
which points out how the presumption of trust creates the relation of trust as much as the
relation of trust creates the presumption of trust. For Williams’s concept of trust, see the
clues he gives in Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief
(London: Canterbury Press, 2007), 11–19, 46–47, 82, 105–106, 159.
36 U. SCHMIEDEL
Williams argues that if language is recast as representation, then ‘we

do not need to invoke a non-representable level of reality—a strictly non-
speakable level of agency.’108 In as much as representation cuts through
James’s distinction between effable experiences and ineffable experiences,
it collapses the separation of the effable transcendence of the finite other
and the ineffable transcendence of the infinite other which was drawn in
James’s Gifford Lectures. Instead, representation allows for the deferral
of conceptual closure.109 For Williams, the deferral is exemplified by the
parables of Jesus which represent God.110 In these parables, God is nar-
rated; but the narratives engage and expose their addressees to the alter-
ity of God by continuously deferring closure. Eventually, Williams—like
James—refers to mysticism. Mysticism, however, is now characterized nei-
ther by ineffability nor by effability.111 Instead, mysticism, like the parables
of Jesus, defers closure. Austin’s distinction between locution (describing)
and illocution (doing) as dimensions of speech acts is instructive for the
deferral. Williams uses the utterance ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am’ to
illustrate how gratitude is represented.112 Following Austin, I suggest that
the utterance can be distinguished in its locutionary force (‘I cannot say
how grateful I am’) and its illocutionary force (‘I am grateful’), thus pin-
pointing how the sentence is ‘doing’ gratitude paradoxically and precisely
by not ‘describing’ gratitude. Williams concludes that language about the
transcendence of the other might be tested as to whether it does or does
not respect alterity: if it aims to dispossess the other through imaginative
response, it does and if it aims to possess the other through imitating repeti-
tion, it does not pass the test—a tantalizing test to which I will return.113
Of course, Williams is writing about the transcendence of God. Yet, the
test can be applied to the finite as well as the infinite other. If it is applied
to James’s talk about the other, James fails the test. Both his understand-
ing of the finite other and his understanding of the infinite other aim to
‘own’ the transcendent: the transcendence of the finite other is character-
ized as completely knowable (and thus effable), the transcendence of the
108
Williams, The Edge of Words, 78 (emphasis in the original).
109
Ibid., 78–79.
110
Ibid., 89–99, 148–149.
111
Ibid., 175.
112
Ibid., 163: Williams borrows the example from Dewi Z. Philips, Faith after
Foundationalism (London: Routledge, 1988), 278–279, but neither of them utilize Austin’s
distinction between locution and illocution to analyze it.
113
Williams, The Edge of Words, 175.
infinite other is characterized as completely unknowable (and thus inef-

fable). In both cases, the other is confined by one’s evaluations and expec-
tations of the other: the infinite other cannot make herself known and the
finite other cannot make herself unknown. The conceptual confinement
culminates in ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ where James argues that the subject
of trust creates the object of trust through trust.114 Here, the difference
which constitutes the relation between the one who trusts and the one
who is trusted collapses. Both fall into one, leaving no space for surprises.
In conclusion, James explores religion as experience of transcendence.
But James’s definition of the experience of transcendence draws a distinc-
tion between the effable transcendence of the finite other and the ineffable
transcendence of the infinite other in order to distinguish religious experi-
ence from non-religious experience. In both cases, a relation to the other
is impossible. James’s notion of language cannot account for the relation-
ality of trust insofar as it interprets the transcendence of the other either
as completely describable or as completely indescribable. The corollary of
James’s separation of the effable experience of transcendence and the inef-
fable experience of transcendence is the experientialism which interiorizes
and individualizes religiosity. However, if language is recast as representa-
tion, it cuts across these distinctions: the finite other is made ‘more’ tran-
scendent and the infinite other is made ‘more’ immanent when language
is interpreted as imaginative response to the other.115 Since representation
is rooted in relationality, the (Jamesian) circle of trust is both a condition
of communion with the other and a consequence of communion with the
other. In the circle of trust, trust creates trust.
In the famous–infamous wager with which I started, Pascal acknowl-
edges the significance of community for faith. He admits that the argument
of the wager might not suffice to create faith. Accordingly, he asks: what
if I ‘am so made that I cannot believe? What, then, would you have me
do?’116 And he answers with a recommendation to follow those ‘who know
the way’—by which he means joining a church.117 His recommendation
114
James, ‘Is Life Worth Living,’ 61. Matthias Jung offers a detailed discussion of how
James turns the ‘principle of projection (Projektionsprinzip),’ which can be traced back to
Ludwig Feuerbach, from a critique of religion into a confirmation of religion. See Ludwig
Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. Marian Evans (London: Tübner, 1881). See
also Jung, Erfahrung und Religion, 162–168, 197–201.
115
See again, Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters, 10–12.
116
Pascal, Penseés, 68.
117
Ibid.
38 U. SCHMIEDEL
indicates that joining finite others might have consequences for one’s faith
in the infinite other as much as one’s faith in the infinite other might have
consequences for joining finite others. Hence, Pascal implies that religios-
ity is not a matter of solitary founders but of social followers. For the elas-
ticization of ecclesiology, James’s dismissal of Pascal’s wager might have
been too hasty and too haughty.118
118
I will return to Pascal’s wager in Chap. 9.
CHAPTER 2
The Drive for Difference
Ernst Troeltsch was fascinated by the turn to experience.1 According to

Troeltsch, William James’s concentration on experience had been antici-
pated by Friedrich Schleiermacher’s speeches On Religion.2 Troeltsch
argues that the essentialism in Schleiermacher’s definition of religion
stranded in a ‘stiff scholasticism’ which acknowledged neither historical
nor cultural flux.3 Yet James’s empirical explorations of experience caused
‘a stir’ among the stiff scholastics who followed Schleiermacher.4 But
Troeltsch was neither uncritical nor uncreative in his conversation with
James.
1
Troeltsch repeatedly refers to James’s approach to religion. He discusses James’s philoso-
phy in reviews from 1896 and 1897 (R1 and R2). James’s psychology of religion is assessed
in a review from 1904, even before his studies were translated into German (R3). Troeltsch
takes these reviews up in PE. For a summary in English, see also Troeltsch’s obituary to
James (EP).
2
See Schleiermacher, On Religion. For the significance of Schleiermacher for the turn to
experience, see Hans Joas, ‘Schleiermacher and the Turn to Experience in the Study of
Religion,’ in Interpreting Religion: The Significance of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Reden über
die Religion, ed. Dietrich Korsch and Amber L. Griffioen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011),
147–161.
3
R3, 365. See also EP, 16–17.
4
EP, 401.

40 U. SCHMIEDEL
In this chapter, I will explore Troeltsch’s reception of James.5 In

response to James, Troeltsch demands the exploration of the role of
community.6 Effectively, he criticizes the distinction between ‘religion’
and ‘second-hand-religion’ which James draws out of neglect for the
‘conjunction (Verknüpfung)’ between experience and expression.7 Yet,
Troeltsch’s rhapsodizing reviews come without detailed discussion.8
Hence, a magnifying-glass is needed in order to corroborate Troeltsch’s
critique. Troeltsch’s ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ a study which
appeared piece-by-piece between 1895 and 1896, might fulfill this func-
tion.9 Published prior to The Varieties of Religious Experience, this study
sketches the state of Troeltsch’s research when he encounters the philoso-
phy and the psychology of James. Although Troeltsch’s study would not
be published today—‘revise and resubmit’ is the peer-review evaluation
which Troeltsch would have to expect10—it remains instructive for both
sociology and theology.11
‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ then, offers a pertinent and promis-
ing point of departure for me to fill in what Troeltsch’s explicit engagement
with James’s research on religion left open.12 I will argue that Troeltsch’s
5
Here, I am elaborating and expanding on Ulrich Schmiedel, ‘The Trouble with Trust in
the Transcendent: Ernst Troeltsch’s Reception of William James,’ in Religious Experience
Revisited: Expressing the Inexpressible?, ed. Thomas Hardtke, Ulrich Schmiedel and Tobias
Tan (Leiden: Brill: 2016), 187–206. Portraying Troeltsch’s reception of James’s approach to
religion is promising because Troeltsch formed and reformed his theories in conversation
with colleagues and companions. For a summary of Troeltsch’s approach to reviews, see
Maren Bienert, Protestantische Selbstverortung: Die Rezensionen Ernst Troeltschs (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2014), 1–12.
6
R2, 366.
7
PE, 17.
8
See also Bienert, Protestantische Selbstverortung, 173n. 753.
9
SR was published in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 5 (1895) and 6 (1896). I follow
the recent republication of Troeltsch’s study in Kritische Gesamtausgabe.
10
Hans Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit religiöser Phänomene: Ernst Troeltsch als Vorbild der
Religionsforschung,’ Fuge 6 (2010), 16. Joas excavated SR before the articles were repub-
lished in Kritische Gesamtausgabe.
11
Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 15–28. See also Jörg Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit der
Religion,’ in Die Aufgeklärte Religion und ihre Probleme, ed. Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz,
Wilhelm Gräb and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 431–445.
12
Christian Albrecht ‘Einleitung,’ in Ernst Troeltsch, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1:
‘Schriften zur Theologie und Religionsphilosophie (1888–1902),’ ed. Christian Albrecht in
collaboration with Björn Biester, Lars Emersleben and Dirk Schmid (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2009), 17, argues that SR shows the central concerns of Troeltsch’s research which remain
relevant throughout his career.
THE DRIVE FOR DIFFERENCE 41
reception of James gestures toward a tacit theory of trust which interre-

lates the relation to the finite other and the relation to the infinite other.13
I will assess Troeltsch’s theory of trust as ‘tacit’ because he avoids the
terminology of trust when he thinks through these interrelations. In three
steps, I aim to argue that he does talk about trust implicitly, although he
does not talk about ‘trust’ explicitly. In step 1, I will analyze Troeltsch’s
concept of religion. I will argue that the relation to the transcendent is
at its core. For Troeltsch, religion is relation. Since the transcendent is
conceived of as other and outside of the self, alterity drives the histori-
cal–cultural development of religion past and present. In step 2, I will ana-
lyze Troeltsch’s account of the experience of the other. Criticizing James,
Troeltsch conceives of the transcendence of the other as both effable and
ineffable. I will argue that the tension between the effability and the inef-
fability of alterity results in a definition of revelation as a dynamic drive for
difference. Finally, in step 3, I will explore why Troeltsch avoids the termi-
nology of trust when he interprets religion as relation. I will argue that in
his avoidance of the term ‘trust,’ he reintroduces the notion of experience
which he rebuffed. Turning Troeltsch against Troeltsch, I will conclude
by rereading his reflections as a tacit theory of trust which conveys the
contours of a concept of community circling around trust.
My exploration of Troeltsch’s reception of James is organized themati-
cally rather than historically.14 Without diving too deeply into the con-
versation between pragmatism and historicism, I will investigate the core
concepts and the core concerns which are instructive for my account of
trust in the following chapter.15
13
Cornelia Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen: Eine Skizze zum theologischen
Forschungsstand,’ Hermeneutische Blätter 1 (2010), 25–44, indicates that Troeltsch could
be characterized as a ‘prominent precursor (Vordenker)’ of the theorization of trust in theol-
ogy (ibid., 34).
14
See Wilhelm Hennis, ‘The Spiritualist Foundation of Max Weber’s “Interpretative
Sociology”: Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber and William James’s Varieties of Religious
Experience,’ History of the Human Sciences 11/2 (1998), 83–106. Hennis analyzes how
Troeltsch introduced Max Weber to James’s concept of religion, but without taking account
of Troeltsch’s reception of James’s concept.
15
For the impact of William James’s pragmatism on European philosophies, see Jaime
Nubiola, ‘The Reception of William James in Continental Europe,’ in William James and the
Transatlantic Conversation: Pragmatism, Pluralism and Philosophy of Religion, 15–29,
although Nubiola makes no mention of Troeltsch. The fact that Troeltsch was vital for the
reception of pragmatism in Europe is pointed out by Hans Joas, ‘Pragmatismus und
42 U. SCHMIEDEL
The Difference Within Religion

The title ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion’ already announces the core
concern of Troeltsch’s definition of religion. Yet, as is often or all too
often the case with Troeltsch’s titles, it is difficult to translate: ‘Die
Selbständigkeit der Religion’—literally ‘the self-standing-ness of reli-
gion’—suggests an anti-reductionist concept of religion. I will argue that
the relation to the other is at the core of Troeltsch’s anti-reductionism.
Religion is a relation which cannot be reduced to either the natural or the
supernatural.16
Throughout his oeuvre, Troeltsch combines theological and non-
theological approaches.17 The study of religion offers the framework in
which these approaches can be combined.18 If it ascertains that religion
cannot be reduced non-theologically to the natural or theologically to the
supernatural, the study of religion allows for a strong and striking apology
for religion.19 In his apology, Troeltsch mocks essentializations of religion:
Here it would be a scholastic misunderstanding … if one would want to find

a definition of religion which could fit all cases—as it happened often or all
too often, losing its credibility because it was skewed, shallow or superficial.
Historismus: Meads Philosophie der Zeit und die Logik der Geschichtsschreibung,’ Deutsche
Zeitschrift für Philosophie 36/1 (2015), 1–21.
16
Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 17–18. See also Kristian Fechtner, Volkskirche im neuzeitli-
chen Christentum: Die Bedeutung Ernst Troeltschs für eine künftige praktisch-theologische
Theorie der Kirche (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995), 38–39.
17
SR, 367. Accordingly, Troeltsch follows what Schleiermacher called a general philo-
sophical rather than a special theological hermeneutics. See Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief
Outline of the Study of Theology, trans. William Farrer (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850),
142–145. See also the succinct summary in Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 159–164.
18
For Troeltsch’s concept of the study of religion, see Michael Pye, ‘Troeltsch and the
Science of Religion,’ in Ernst Troeltsch, Writings in Theology and Religion, trans. Robert
Morgan and Michael Pye (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977), 234–252.
19
SR, 365. Ulrich Barth, Gott als Projekt der Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003),
363–365, argues that Troeltsch understands ‘apologetics’ in a non-dogmatic rather than a
dogmatic way. Troeltsch’s critique of dogmatism follows from his collaboration with the
Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. According to the ‘History of Religion School,’ Christianity is
to be contextualized in the history of religions which includes both Christian and non-
Christian traditions. For a succinct summary, see Mark D. Chapman, ‘History of Religion
School,’ in The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth Century Theology, ed. David Fergusson
(Chichester: Blackwell, 2010), 434–454. Because of its turn to the history of religion, ‘Die
Selbständigkeit der Religion’ marks a striking step in Troeltsch’s disengagement from his
theological teacher Albrecht Ritschl. See also Christophe Chalamet, ‘Ernst Troeltsch’s Break
from Ritschl and his School,’ Journal for the History of Modern Theology 19/1 (2012), 34–71.
Instead, what one has to find is the crucial point or the crucial points which
characterize all … religion.20
In order to find the(se) characteristic(s) of religion, Troeltsch turns to

experience. Like James, he proposes to take experiences of transcendence
as the point of departure.21 But, unlike James, he combines synchronic
and diachronic accounts of these experiences. Troeltsch’s circular combi-
nation comes close to a hermeneutics: the synchronic account of religion
is rooted in the analysis of the diachronic account of religion, and the
analysis of the diachronic account of religion is rooted in the synchronic
account of religion.22 Hence, to learn about religion today, one has to
examine its history; and to examine its history, one has to learn about
religion today. Crucially, the fundamental feature of both accounts of reli-
gion is the ‘relation (Beziehung)’ between the immanent and the transcen-
dent.23 I will consider Troeltsch’s synchronic and diachronic approaches
in turn.
In his synchronic approach, Troeltsch portrays religion as a relation
between the religious subject (in theological terminology, the creature)
and the religious object (in theological terminology, the creator). He
stresses that the creature experiences the creator as a ‘Wesenheit.’24 Again,
Troeltsch deploys a concept which defies exact translation. The experi-
ence of a ‘Wesenheit’ implies that subject and object of religion cannot
be collapsed: there remains a difference between creature and creator in
the experience. Because of this difference, the creature experiences the
creator as other and as outside of herself.25 As a consequence, the expe-
rience of transcendence cannot be demonstrated in a detached manner:
20
RP, 468. See also Lori Pearson, Beyond Essence: Ernst Troeltsch as Historian and Theorist
of Christianity (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2008), 71–85.
21
Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434.
22
Ibid., 455.
23
SR, 399. For the significance of the ‘relation (Beziehung)’ to the transcendent for reli-
gion, see also SR 397, 398, 401, 416, 419, 441, 457, 466, 497, 506, 507, 509.
24
SR, 395.
25
Ibid. Michael Mack, ‘The Other,’ in The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the
Nineteenth Century, ed. Michael N. Forster and Kristin Gjesdal (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2015), 736–750, distinguishes between a Kantian notion of the other in which other-
ness is disengaged by the self and a post-Kantian notion of the other in which otherness is
engaged by the self. For Mack, Friedrich Schleiermacher exemplifies the post-Kantian notion
of the other—a notion which would also be applicable to Troeltsch’s thinking.
44 U. SCHMIEDEL
the transcendence of the other is to be received in person rather than in

principle.26 Religiosity has to be experienced.
Troeltsch admits that his characterization of religion as relation may
raise suspicion. Countless critics of religion have attempted to debunk
the creator as a projection of the creature. ‘With the calm confidence
of an accountant,’ Troeltsch covers these critiques.27 In conversation
with Ludwig Feuerbach,28 he concentrates on the concept of ‘need
(Bedürfnis).’29 According to Troeltsch, the critiques of religion as projec-
tion share the assumption that religion satisfies a need. But for two reasons,
Troeltsch argues, the assumption is flawed. On the one hand, the projec-
tion theories cannot explain why the need arises.30 Why indeed would
the self start such a need for religion? On the other hand, the projection
theories cannot explain why the need is not assuaged.31 Why indeed would
the self not satisfy such a need for religion? For Troeltsch, the difference
characteristic of the relation between creature and creator implies that the
creator remains other in the relation.32 The other cannot be a projected
other because the other is the one who starts and satisfies the need—a
satisfaction which is neither full nor final: the other remains other.
Elaborating on the difference between creature and creator, Troeltsch
offers a phenomenology of religious relationality.33 He utilizes the con-
cept of ‘Ehrfurcht’ which could be rendered as ‘awe,’ linking ‘adora-
tion’ to ‘apprehension.’34 In the eyes of the creature, the creator is a
‘mystery (Mysterium)’—a mystery seen or sensed in the two ‘keynotes
(Grundtöne)’ of attraction and aversion.35 The mystery of transcendence
26
SR, 393–394.
27
28
SR, 400–405. See also Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, esp. §2, where Feuerbach
interprets religion in terms of a satisfaction of needs (ibid., 12–32).
29
SR, 405.
30
SR, 405–409.
31
SR, 412–413.
32
SR, 419. See also Brian A. Gerrish, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and the Possibility of a Historical
Theology,’ in Ernst Troeltsch and the Future of Theology, 132–134.
33
The concept of phenomenology is anachronistic if applied to SR, where Troeltsch refers
to ‘psychology’ rather than ‘phenomenology.’ However, in his autobiographical account,
Troeltsch argues that his interdisciplinary thinking anticipated the phenomenology of reli-
gion. See MB, 370. Moreover, James L. Cox includes Troeltsch into his A Guide to the
Phenomenology of Religion (London: T&T Clark, 2006), esp. 67–102.
34
SR, 412.
35
SR, 430.
inspires fascination and fear at once.36 Troeltsch’s depiction of the rela-

tion between the subject and the object of religion anticipates Rudolf
Otto’s pre-eminent phenomenology of The Holy.37 Through the concept
of ‘Ehrfurcht,’ Troeltsch stresses that the experience of the relationality of
religion escapes conceptual closure.38 Troeltsch avoids ascribing the rela-
tion to either the religious subject or the religious object. Both logically
and phenomenologically, the relation requires the agency of the finite and
the infinite. Thus, Troeltsch’s synchronic approach interprets religion as a
relation which is characterized by the difference between the creature and
the creator. It comes close to James’s circle of trust.
In his diachronic approach, Troeltsch argues that relationality operates
as a criterion for evaluating the development of religion past and present.39
If religion is a relation between creature and creator, the development of
religion is the corollary of their relation.40 Troeltsch captures this corollary
by means of a christological concept—‘Gottmenschlichkeit.’41 Hence, the
incarnation, conceived of as intertwined interaction between creator and
creature, runs through the history of religion. It is confined neither to
Christ nor to Christianity.42
In his evaluation of the connection between creature and creator in the
history of religion, Troeltsch engages with Georg F.W. Hegel.43 Troeltsch
36
Ibid.
37
See Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational in the Idea of
the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford
University Press, 1924). For Troeltsch’s anticipation of Otto’s phenomenology, see ZR. See
also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 432. Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit religiöser Phänomene,’
20, points to the critique of Schleiermacher which lurks between the lines of Troeltsch’s
phenomenology of religion: religion does not emerge from a feeling of dependency. Rather,
religion engenders complex constellations of feelings which Troeltsch circles with the con-
cept of Ehrfurcht.
38
Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434–435. See also RP, 478.
39
SR, 439.
40
SR, 460.
41
SR, 472.
42
Following Coakley’s Christ Without Absolutes, Troeltsch’s theology is often character-
ized as a critique of the notion of incarnation. Coakley refers to the ‘“Cumulative Case”
against Incarnational Christology’ (ibid., 103–135). However, by transposing the notion of
incarnation from the Christian religion to the Christian and the non-Christian religions,
Troeltsch, it could be argued, is not rejecting but radicalizing incarnation.
43
See esp. Georg W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion I-II, Werke
16–17, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl M. Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).
For a short summary of Hegel’s philosophy of history, see Sally Sedgwick, ‘Philosophy of
46 U. SCHMIEDEL
is committed to counter Hegel’s teleology, announcing that one has to

attend to the dreadful regress as well as the delightful progress within the
history of religion.44 According to the characterization of religion as rela-
tion, religions with emphasis on relationality supersede religions without
emphasis on relationality.45 Troeltsch borrows the concept of the ‘germi-
native principle’ from Edward Caird’s 1891–1892 Gifford Lectures, The
Evolution of Religion, in order to elaborate on the evaluation of religion.46
Caird argued that a definition of religion cannot be construed as overlap
of the beliefs and behaviors of different religions. According to Caird,
such a definition would tie religion to past (and, for him, undeveloped)
religions as opposed to present (and, for him, developed) religions.47
On the contrary, for the definition of religion, ‘a principle of the genesis
of religions’—which is to say, a ‘germinative principle’—is imperative.48
Through such a principle, the historian can ‘cast the light of the present
upon the past.’49 Hence, this principle ‘is a seed which works secretly in
the minds of those who receive it … till, ultimately, … it produces results
which were present to none of those who first accepted it.’50
Troeltsch qualifies the concept of the germinative principle with the
notion of ‘Trieb,’ which translates as ‘drive.’51 He argues that a ‘drive’
comprises both its ‘excitation (Erregung)’ and its ‘exciter (Erreger).’52 The
exciter is experienced through the excitation. Thus, whoever or whatever
drives the drive remains in ‘twilight (Halbdunkel).’53 It cannot be captured.
History,’ in The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, 436–452.
For Troeltsch’s reception of Hegel in ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ see Lauster, ‘Die
Selbständigkeit,’ 436–437.
44
SR, 458.
45
SR, 460.
46
See Edward Caird, The Evolution of Religion: The Gifford Lectures delivered before the
University of St Andrews in Sessions 1891–92 (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1893), 2 vols.
47
The distinction between developed and undeveloped religions is also apparent in James’s
account of religion. See James, The Varieties, 12. For a summary, see Lash, Easter in
Ordinary, 20–21. Troeltsch’s theology is not free from it either. See FV, 134–187.
48
Caird, The Evolution of Religion, vol. 1, 43.
49
Ibid., 47.
50
Caird, The Evolution of Religion, vol. 2, 296.
51
SR, 473. In The Future of an Illusion, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961),
Sigmund Freud argues that religion offers a mechanism to cope with the dissatisfaction of
drives—drives which are rooted in each and every person. Writing prior to Freud, Troeltsch
asks how drives are rooted in a person.
52
SR, 473.
53
Ibid.
If ‘drive’ is turned from a non-religious into a religious concept, the drive

can be presented as the ‘precursor (Vorläufer) of all conscious and con-
ceptual religion.’54 The excitation drives the creature to consciously and
conceptually capture the self-communication of the creator in the excita-
tion, such that the drive can be understood as the ‘affection (Affizierung)’
of the creature through the creator.55 Hence, for Troeltsch, the drive of
religion is rooted in the relation between creature and creator. The mys-
tery of transcendence causes a desire to express the transcendent—a desire
which drives the development of religion past and present because it can-
not be satisfied. Troeltsch concludes that if the historian takes this drive as
the criterion for the assessment of the development of religion, she has to
interpret the criterion as a process rather than as a point. Thus, the crite-
rion cannot be construed propositionally. A propositional criterion would
require the end of history. Yet, the historian can infer the drive from the
development of religion. Troeltsch identifies three tendencies which refer
to theological, cosmological and anthropological trajectories.
Theologically, Troeltsch points to the process of the ‘personalization’
of the concept of God.56 Accordingly, the relation between creature and
creator is interpreted increasingly as interpersonal relation. Troeltsch is
aware of the danger of anthropomorphism.57 But he accepts it in order to
point to the ‘universalization’ of God which is closely connected to the
process of God’s personalization.58 If the creator relates personally to each
and every creature, it cannot be assumed that the relation is limited to
those who belong to a particular political or ecclesial corporation.59
Cosmologically, Troeltsch points to the process of the differentia-
tion between transcendence and immanence: in as much as the creator
is interpreted as transcendent, the creature is interpreted as immanent.60
However, Troeltsch does not fall for a ‘myth of purity’61 which strictly
54
Ibid.
55
Ibid.
56
SR, 504.
57
Ibid.
58
SR, 505.
59
Ibid.
60
SR, 506.
61
For the concept of ‘the myth of purity,’ see Espen Dahl, Phenomenology and the Holy:
Religious Experience after Husserl (London: SCM, 2010), esp. 10–12. Dahl argues that the
myth of purity, according to which the immanent is purely immanent and the transcendent is
purely transcendent, prevents phenomenology from exploring the in-breaking of the tran-
scendent into the immanent.
48 U. SCHMIEDEL
s eparates immanence and transcendence, but stresses that the differentia-

tion of the transcendent creator from the immanent creature results in
their ‘intersection (Durchkreuzung).’62 Again, it is the difference which
allows the creature to see the creator as other. The recognition of this dif-
ference is the condition for their relation.
Anthropologically, Troeltsch points to the process of the sacralization
of the person which follows from the theological and the cosmological
evolution of religion.63 If the creator is related to the creature in personal
rather than impersonal terms, the person is elevated from immanent signif-
icance to transcendent significance—which is to say, sacralized. Troeltsch
stresses the centrality of the concept of the soul as the connection between
the transcendent and the immanent in the person.64
Troeltsch concludes that these trajectories confirm the relationality at
the core of religion. The creature differs from the creator; through this
difference, the relation between creature and creator is made possible; and
this relation eventually elevates the creature to the creator.65 According
to Troeltsch, Christianity is the religion which crystallizes relationali-
ty.66 Thus, Troeltsch responds to a concern which has haunted theology
since Schleiermacher—the concern for the absoluteness of Christianity.67
Because Christianity crystallizes the relationality of religion, Troeltsch
concludes, it is the absolute religion.
However, what Troeltsch’s conclusion demonstrates is, first and fore-
most, a deficiency in his methodology. Even if one is willing to concede
that the history of religion displays tendencies like those identified by
Troeltsch,68 it is clear that his synchronic criterion dictates his diachronic
62
SR, 506.
63
SR, 509. For a sociological–philosophical account of the sacralization of the person
inspired by Troeltsch, see Joas, The Sacredness of the Person.
64
Ibid.
65
SR, 519.
66
Ibid.
67
Ibid. See also SR, 520–523. The quest for the absoluteness of Christianity followed from
Schleiermacher’s approach to theology. Once Schleiermacher had anchored Christianity in a
concept of religion rather than a concept of revelation, the Christian theologian had to prove
that the Christian religion is superior to non-Christian religions: Christianity as the religion.
For a study on the quest for the absoluteness of Christianity, see AC. Throughout his career,
Troeltsch becomes less and less sure about the absoluteness of Christianity. See his 1922
lecture on ‘The Place of Christianity Among the World Religions,’ in FV, 134–187.
68
The notion of the axial age points to processes in the history of religion which come
close to those identified by Troeltsch. See the contributions to The Axial Age and its
Consequences, ed. Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2012).
conclusion69: his synchronic account of religion is tied to Christianity; thus,

his diachronic account of religion is tied to Christianity.70 Because of the
way Troeltsch looks at the history of religion, he cannot but confirm the
absoluteness of Christianity. The fact that he uses the christological concept
of ‘Gottmenschlichkeit’ in order to assess the history of religion tells its
own tale. Zigzagging between teleological and non-teleological concepts
of history, Troeltsch cannot keep his commitment to go beyond Hegel. A
Hegelian teleology in which the Christian trumps the non-Christian runs
through ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion.’ Hence, Troeltsch’s evalua-
tion of history is too nice and too neat to convince.71 Even Troeltsch is
not convinced. He continues to struggle with the philosophy of history
throughout his life, becoming less and less sure of teleology.72
However, Troeltsch is cautious. When he concludes that the ‘ultimate
(endgültig) breakthrough … can be found in Christianity which … con-
nects … transcendence and immanence as the two constitutive elements of
religion in a way which cannot be conceptualized,’73 he qualifies what he
means by ‘ultimate’: here, the absoluteness of Christianity is interpreted in
a historical rather than a non-historical manner. For Troeltsch, the devel-
opment of religion past and present must be assessed from within the
development. Since this development is on-going, Christianity could be
superseded—potentially and actually.74 Hence, Troeltsch argues that nei-
ther Christ nor Christianity can be taken as the absolute manifestation
of religion in an ahistorical sense: they are absolute inside history, not
69
Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 28.
70
In The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the
Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 309–323, Tomoko
Masuzawka assumes that Troeltsch’s integration of Christian and non-Christian religions
within the study of religion failed, arguing that his concept of religion originates in
Christianity. However, notwithstanding Troeltsch’s concentration on Christianity, he is not
interested in a concept of religion which fits each and every case. For Troeltsch, it would be
conceivable to create a variety of concepts of religion for a variety of contexts of religion. For
a convincing critique of Masuzawaka’s account of Troeltsch, see Aimee Burant Chor, ‘Ernst
Troeltsch and the Politics of “Christianity”: Context, Pragmatics, and Method in the
Historiography of Modern Theology,’ Mitteilungen der Ernst-Troeltsch-Gesellschaft 20/21
(2008), 78–97.
71
See Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 27–28. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 444.
72
Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 27–28.
73
RP, 484.
74
SR, 520–523.
50 U. SCHMIEDEL
outside history.75 Troeltsch stresses that one has to trust in absoluteness,

because through ‘swaying sentiments (schwankende Stimmungsseligkeit),’
one would defraud oneself of its effects.76 ‘The claim cannot be proven,
because it is the nature of such a claim to be unprovable.’77 What lurks
behind Troeltsch’s caution could be characterized as the mystery of tran-
scendence. In both his synchronic and his diachronic approach to religion,
Troeltsch stresses the difference between creator and creature. The other
remains other—even in the relation to the other. The fact that the other
cannot be conceptualized completely drives the development of religion
past and present. The relation to the alterity of God provokes and pre-
serves a drive for difference.
To summarize, Troeltsch understands religion as a relation to the other
which is marked by openness to the other’s otherness. When Troeltsch
encountered the philosophy and the psychology of William James, he
had already developed a concept of religion which focused on experience.
Troeltsch concurs with James, arguing that the experience of transcen-
dence points to the difference between creature and creator. God under-
stands God, but ‘we do not ascribe religion’ to God.78
For humans, however, who cannot understand … reality because they expe-
rience merely a minimum of it—and even the minimum in a fragmentary
manner—only the code of conduct which we call religion is possible: the …
trusting surrender to the different … traces of his [sic] revelation.79
However, the way in which Troeltsch approaches the impossibility to

conceptualize God differs decidedly from James’s. For Troeltsch, the
75
See Hans Joas, ‘Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbindung: Ernst Troeltsch als Ausgangspunkt
einer modernen Religionssoziologie,’ in Religion(en) deuten, 58. The historicization which
leads Troeltsch from the ahistorical ‘non-relative’ concept of absoluteness to the historical
‘relative’ concept of absoluteness anticipates the argument advanced in AC.
76
SR, 526. Coakley identifies ‘faith’ in the superiority of Christianity as a ‘Ritschlian’
remainder in Troeltsch’s concept of religion. She argues that it counters his interpretation of
the evolution of religion. See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 55. What Coakley calls a
‘half-way’ (ibid.), however, seems to me to follow from Troeltsch’s zigzag between teleology
and non-teleology in his interpretation of history. When he moves from teleology to non-
teleology, he emphasizes the significance of faith. When he de-emphasizes the significance of
faith, he moves from non-teleology to teleology.
77
SR, 528. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 437.
78
SR, 381.
79
Ibid.
e xperience of religious relationality is neither ineffable (along the lines of

James) nor effable (against the lines of James), but ineffable and effable at
the same time.
The Drive Within Religion

Countering James’s binary distinction between pure immediate experi-
ence and impure mediate experience, Troeltsch offers a triangle of event,
expression and experience. While Troeltsch’s ‘event’ refers to James’s
‘immediate experience’ and Troeltsch’s ‘expression’ refers to James’s
‘mediate experience,’ Troeltsch’s ‘experience’ captures the combination of
event and expression.80 In the Troeltschian triangle, mystical experiences
are neither simply effable nor simply ineffable but simultaneously effable
and ineffable.81 I will argue that the simultaneity of the effability and the
ineffability of alterity results in a definition of revelation as a dynamic drive
for difference.
Mediation is crucial for Troeltsch. In ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’
he stresses the significance of ‘imagination (Phantasie)’ for religion.82
Since the content of religion is inextricably intertwined with the ‘media
(Medien)’ through which the content comes to the subject’s conscious-
ness, these media are ‘imbibed (einverleibt)’ into religion.83 ‘Imagination’
refers to the subject’s engagement with these media which have been
transmitted to her through tradition. Media are ‘indispensable’ for the
self-actualization of the event in the experience.84 However, Troeltsch
admits that self-actualization through expression does not imply a one-to-
one correspondence between the event and the experience.85 He argues
that self-actualization is always already alteration.86 Troeltsch coins the
concept of ‘das Unaussprechlichste’87: the (substantially and stylistically
80
Troeltsch employs a number of concepts in order to argue that the event of religion (in
James’s terminology, pure experience) and the expression of religion (in James’s terminol-
ogy, impure experience) co-constitute the experience of religion. See esp. SR, 399, 419–420,
423, 448. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434–435.
81
PE, 16–17.
82
SR, 388.
83
Ibid.
84
Ibid.
85
RP, 476–477.
86
SR, 395.
87
SR, 436.
52 U. SCHMIEDEL
incorrect) superlative of ‘the ineffable’ highlights that the event cannot

be captured in the experience. Thus, the triangle of event, expression and
experience counters the binary distinction between what is expressed and
what is experienced without collapsing experience and expression.
Turning from non-theological to theological terminology, Troeltsch
uses the concept of revelation to elucidate the relationality of religion
within the triangle of event, expression and experience.88 Revelation
includes both event and expression in its experience: it requires both fides
qua and fides quae.89 The event of revelation cannot be accessed without
the experience of the event of revelation; and the experience of the event
of revelation cannot be accessed without the expression of the event of rev-
elation.90 Accordingly, experience is co-constituted by event and expres-
sion. Troeltsch emphasizes that the experiencing subject is both active
and passive in the experience, describing the mediation of the event in the
experience through the expression as the subject’s imaginative intuition
of God: ‘Gottesanschauung.’91 According to Troeltsch, everything—the
personal, the textual or the musical92—might become a mediation of rev-
elation through which the religious subject expresses the relation between
the immanent and the transcendent in her experience.93 As he argues in his
article on ‘Historiography,’ revelation implies ‘the absolute in the relative,
yet not fully and finally in it, but always pressing on towards fresh forms
of self-expression.’94
Troeltsch draws a distinction between the majority of ‘reproductive’
subjects and the minority of ‘productive’ subjects.95 He argues that each
and every subject draws from expressions of past revelatory events in order
to formulate expressions of present revelatory events, thus changing the
reservoir of mediations either in ways which confirm tradition (reproduc-
tive) or in ways which create tradition (productive).
88
SR, 420.
89
Ibid.
90
SR, 423.
91
SR, 441.
92
However, Troeltsch never discusses in detail how the personal, the textual or the musical
function as mediations of religion. See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 193–194.
93
SR, 378–388, 423. Here, Troeltsch anticipates the core concern of Mircea Eliade’s, The
Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (London: Harcourt, 1959), esp. 10–15.
94
HI, 722. See also Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 84–85.
95
SR, 427.
According to Troeltsch, Jesus exemplifies the production rather than

the reproduction of tradition.96 But since revelation is always already
dependent on mediation, the distinction between production and repro-
duction is used to contextualize Jesus: Jesus is understood in the con-
text of Judaism, inside rather than outside history.97 In comparison to
James, Troeltsch offers a more subtle and more sophisticated account of
the founding figures of religions. The difference between the founder of a
religion and the follower of a religion is a difference in degree: the founder
uses the context more productively; the follower uses the context more
reproductively.
On Troeltsch’s account, Jesus is the center of Christianity; thus, ‘the
personality of Jesus (Persönlichkeit Jesu) is the continuing medium’ for
the experience of revelation in Christianity.98 As a medium, the person-
ality of Jesus operates as ‘the means to excite and to express religious
experience,’ becoming a ‘continuing … vehicle for the intuition of God
(Gottesanschauung).’99 In her analysis of Troeltsch’s christology, Sarah
Coakley argues that in ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ christology is
‘conspicuous by its absence.’100 But the distinction between productive
and reproductive revelation is significant for Troeltsch’s account of chris-
tology, because it contextualizes Jesus in the history of religion.101 The
consequence of such a contextualization is what Troeltsch articulates as
‘dynamic’ (rather than ‘mechanic’) revelation.102
For Troeltsch, the event of revelation is accessed via the detour of
mediations.103 This detour cannot be escaped or evaded—not even in the
encounter with Jesus.104 In as much as God cannot be completely cap-
tured in the mediation by Jesus, Jesus cannot be completely captured in
96
SR, 427–428.
97
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 57–58. I will return to Troeltsch’s interpretation of
the relation of Jesus and Judaism implied in his contextualization of Jesus in Chap. 4.
98
SR, 423.
99
Ibid.
100
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 55. She argues that SR marks a transition in the
development of Troeltsch’s christological thought.
101
CF, 100.
102
CF, 41. In German, Troeltsch distinguishes between ‘dynamischer Offenbarung’ and
‘mechanischer Offenbarung.’ See GL, 41.
103
CF, 49.
104
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 45–79, 136–163, 164–187, traces how Troeltsch’s
theology shifts from assuming the direct relationship of the believer to Jesus to assuming the
indirect relationship of the believer to Jesus.
54 U. SCHMIEDEL
the mediations by those who follow Jesus. Gerd Theissen’s The Shadow of
the Galilean, a novel which communicates the historical–critical research
on Jesus in a narrative, excellently exemplifies Troeltsch’s account of Jesus:
in the novel, the reader never encounters Jesus; what she encounters is
the ‘shadow’ of Jesus in the ways his contemporaries—companions and
critics alike—talk about him.105 Because of the ‘ultimate unknowability
of God,’106 the encounter with Jesus, which mediates the encounter with
God, evokes the (re)production of mediations of encounter: fresh forms
of the self-expression of revelation.107 Accordingly, Troeltsch understands
revelation as a process of mediation which is driven by the mystery of the
other. The process of revelation has neither an absolute point of departure
(because the event of revelation is to be expressed in order to be expe-
rienced) nor an absolute point of destination (because the event of rev-
elation is not to be expressed completely or conclusively). Both absolute
departure and absolute destination would be beyond history. Troeltsch’s
concept of dynamic revelation conveys a process of revelation through
history.108
Troeltsch returns to the issue of assessing the process of revelation along
the lines of his concept of the evolution of religion. He argues that this
process cannot be seen either simply as progress or simply as regress.109 As
mentioned above, although he zigzags between teleology and non-teleol-
ogy, he eventually trains and tames revelation into a clear-cut teleology.110
However, with or without teleology, it is significant that the evaluation of
the process of revelation is itself always already a matter of expressing the
event of revelation.111 Hence, the evaluation of revelation is part and parcel
of revelation. Through the interpretation of Jesus’s revelation, the follow-
ers of Jesus reproduce Jesus’s revelation: productive revelation is contin-
ued in reproductive revelation. The hermeneutical circle in Troeltsch’s
105
See Gerd Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in
Narrative Form, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1987).
106
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 82.
107
Ibid., 86.
108
See Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 69.
109
In CF, 38, Troeltsch rejects what he calls the ‘inexact word “progress.”’ In German,
GL, 37, he characterizes the word ‘progress’ as ‘spießig’ which also renders as ‘stuffy.’
Troeltsch argues that a process has to be assessed again and again in order to decide what
must be considered progress and what must be considered regress.
110
See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 85.
111
CF, 41–43.
conception is clear: the interpretation of Jesus guides the interpretation

of Christianity today and the interpretation of Christianity today guides
the interpretation of Jesus. The experience of revelation—including both
event and expression—is emphasized as processual rather than punctual.112
The concept of reproductive revelation already suggests the image of a spark

that leaps from heart to heart, igniting a different flame in each, according
to what it finds therein. Productive revelation already carries the reproduc-
tive revelation within itself.113
Because Troeltsch conceives of the mediations of Jesus as part and par-

cel of revelation,114 Coakley characterizes his christology as a ‘christolo-
gie totale’—a christology which combines analyses of Jesus and of the
reception of Jesus in ‘the rich variety of Christ-centred believing.’115 I will
return to Troeltsch’s christology throughout my study. Here, it is signifi-
cant that Troeltsch’s triangle of event, expression and experience escapes
the attempts at purification in James. For Troeltsch, the experience of
transcendence is simultaneously effable and ineffable. The corollary of this
simultaneity is a concept of revelation as a dynamic drive for difference.
To summarize, in contrast to James’s binary model of experience and
expression, Troeltsch offers a triangular model of event, expression and
experience. If the tension between event and expression is reduced to a
‘pure’ event (which sees the other as completely ineffable) or a ‘pure’
expression (which sees the other as completely effable), the dynamics
which drives religion is destroyed. Troeltsch concludes that religion can-
not be reduced to either naturalistic or supernaturalistic causes. Religion
is a relation between the created (natural) other and the creating (super-
natural) other, it is both natural and supernatural. Against theological
reductionisms, Troeltsch argues that the revelatory event is at least in
part dependent on the historical and cultural conditions under which it
112
CF, 39.
113
CF, 47.
114
Accordingly, Troeltsch’s concept of revelation comes closer to the classic position of
Catholicism rather than the classic position of Protestantism. See CF, 45. See also BF, 64.
115
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 194. Coakley’s concept of christologie totale adopts
the historiographical method of ‘l’histoire totale.’ See ibid., 194n. 3. Incidentally, Troeltsch’s
christologie totale inspired Coakley’s ‘théologie totale.’ See Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and
the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 33–65,
although she dropped the reference to Troeltsch here.
56 U. SCHMIEDEL
is expressed. And against non-theological reductionisms, Troeltsch argues

that the revelatory event is at least, in part, independent of the historical
and cultural conditions under which it is expressed. The event influences
the expression as much as the expression influences the event.
For Troeltsch, then, religious relationality requires the combination
of the cataphatic construction of a concept of God with the apophatic
destruction of a concept of God.116 Accordingly, Troeltsch’s interpreta-
tion of the other passes the test devised in Rowan Williams’s Gifford
Lectures—the test which I discussed in Chap. 1: it aims at respect for
the other through the deferral of conceptual closure. For Troeltsch, God
is the radical other—which is to say, religious relationality requires the
destruction as well as the construction of one’s conceptions of the other:
openness to otherness. Jacques Derrida coined the controversial con-
cept of deconstruction which lurks between the lines here.117 Amazingly,
his account of religiosity and rationality in Acts of Religion comes close
to Troeltsch’s.118 Derrida likens both religiosity and rationality to ‘a
trust that “founds” all relation to the other in testimony,’119 identify-
ing a ‘contradictory structure: immunitary and auto-immunitary’ in
religion.120 What he means by ‘immunity’ and ‘auto-immunity’ is that
religion cultivates a tension between the knowability and the unknow-
ability of the other. Described differently, in order to cultivate trust in the
other, religion has to secure the concept of God from solid and secure
determination (knowability) and from liquid and insecure indetermi-
nation (unknowability). Thus, the event which is oriented toward the
transcendence of God and the expression which is oriented toward the
immanence of God are to be connected. As Derrida argues, ‘“Religion”
116
117
For a short summary, see Simon Morgan Wortham, ‘Deconstruction,’ in The Derrida
Dictionary (London: Continuum, 2010), 31–33, who argues that the ‘nickname’ decon-
struction is neither exclusively negative nor exclusively positive, but affirms difference and
deferral (ibid., 32). Deconstruction ‘puts a question mark against the very grounds of the
subject and object alike’ (ibid.), thus arriving at ‘a strategic overturning of the hierarchies
implicit in binary oppositions’ (ibid., 33).
118
See Jacques Derrida, ‘Faith and Knowledge,’ trans. Samuel Weber, in Acts of Religion,
ed. Gil Anidjar (London: Routledge, 2010), 40–101.
119
Ibid., 56.
120
Ibid., 82.
figures their ellipse.’121 Hence, religion requires the continuous decon-

struction of one’s concepts of the other.122
Troeltsch’s characterization of religion captures the empirical explora-
tions of James’s Gifford Lectures more precisely and more pointedly than
James himself, for James’s survey is indeed not a survey of experiences
but a survey of expressions of experiences.123 When James admits that he
himself has not had mystical experiences,124 he admits that The Varieties
of Religious Experience is dependent on (in his terminology) impure as
opposed to pure experiences. James cannot account for this dependency—
but Troeltsch can.
Trust: Dealing with the Drive for Difference
Troeltsch’s references to trust are few and far between. I will argue that
the concept of trust which is conveyed by these references rests on a
separation of fides qua and fides quae—a separation which Troeltsch criti-
cizes in his reception of James. Since such a separation makes no sense
within Troeltsch’s triangle of event, expression and experience, I will turn
Troeltsch against Troeltsch, so to speak, assessing his reflections on the
relationality of religion as a tacit theory of trust.
In his Glaubenslehre, the lectures on ‘The Christian Faith’ which he
delivered at the University of Heidelberg in 1912 and 1913,125 Troeltsch,
in line with theological traditions past and present, uses the terminology
121
Ibid., 72.
122
Combining both theological and anti-theological arguments, Derrida’s notion(s) of
God are notoriously nebulous. His core concern is to counter concepts of God which con-
centrate on pure presence. See again Acts of Religion. See also Steven Shakespeare, Derrida
and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 77: Derrida’s ‘work does open possibilities for
theological imagination … In the difference between God and God, there may be no resolu-
tion, but the coming of something unexpected.’ For Shakespeare, the unexpected implies
attraction and aversion alike—a notion which closely corresponds to the phenomenological
account of ‘Ehrfurcht’ offered by Troeltsch. For the diverse ways in which Derrida reflects
on God, see Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology, esp. 69–148.
123
See Niebuhr, ‘William James on Religious Experience,’ 232.
124
James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 301.
125
Walter E. Wyman, The Concept of Glaubenslehre: Ernst Troeltsch and the Theological
Heritage of Schleiermacher (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), established that these lectures
were delivered in 1912 and 1913 rather than 1911 and 1912 (ibid., xv, 208n. 37).
58 U. SCHMIEDEL
of trust when he explores faith (Glaube).126 According to Troeltsch, faith

is a response to revelation, where the experience of the revelatory event
entails expressions of the revelatory event. Hence, ‘a dogmatic exposition
of revelation itself is not possible; what is possible is a dogmatic exposition
of faith … It is through faith that revelation becomes accessible in the first
place.’127 Troeltsch’s combination of the revelatory event and the expres-
sion of the revelatory event in the concept of faith implies that ‘faith’ is a
‘twofold’ concept.128
The two elements of faith are traditionally termed fides qua and fides
quae or fiducia and fides. Troeltsch alludes to the traditional terminology
when he points out that Protestantism tends to stress the significance of
fides qua (the believing), while Catholicism trends to stress the signifi-
cance of fides quae (the beliefs).129 Yet, against any confessional conten-
tion, Troeltsch insists that both are equally significant. However, when he
argues that one’s trust (fides qua) has to be complemented by the cogni-
tive acceptance of whom or what one trusts (fides quae), and the cognitive
acceptance of whom or what one trusts (fides quae) has to be comple-
mented by trust (fides qua), Troeltsch tacitly defines the term ‘trust’
through the separation of fides qua and fides quae which he rejects.130
Drawing on the concept of trust as fides qua without fides quae—to
recall, it is the concept which Richard Rorty characterized as ‘romance’131—
Troeltsch criticizes theologies that revolve around the concept of trust. As
exemplified by Wilhelm Herrmann, these theologies isolate theological
research from non-theological research.132 Building on ‘trust,’ Herrmann
constructs a theology which is rooted in the Reformers’ assumption that
126
In CF, 48–50, ‘Vertrauen’ has been rendered as ‘confidence.’ See GL, 51–52. For
Troeltsch’s account of trust, see also Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen,’ 33–34.
127
CF, 49.
128
Ibid. Garett E. Paul has chosen to translate ‘Glaube’ with ‘faith’ rather than ‘belief.’ I
follow Paul’s translation, especially since William James, as mentioned above, usually uses
both terms interchangeably.
129
Ibid.
130
CF, 48.
131
See again Rorty, ‘Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance,’ 84–102.
See also the analysis of James’s concept of experience in Chap. 1 above.
132
Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 89–110, identifies isolationism as the
core concern in Troeltsch’s critique of Wilhelm Herrmann. See also Brent W. Sockness,
Against False Apologetics: Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1998).
fiducia centers faith.133 Exploring the center of faith, Herrmann argues

that the ‘fact’ of Jesus evokes trust in God134: Jesus ‘so overpowers’ his
followers that they cannot but trust. Since Christianity is grounded in
the fact of Jesus, Herrmann assumes, this fact ‘cannot stand on shifting
ground’—which is to say, it cannot be grounded in historical claims.135
But by locating encounters with Jesus outside rather than inside history
in order to ground trust in God, Herrmann ‘betrays’ a ‘lack of apprecia-
tion for the … representational character’ of faith136 —the representational
character which Troeltsch emphasizes by tracing the influence of revela-
tion in tradition and of tradition in revelation. Hence, for Herrmann, trust
allows for an encounter with Jesus without mediation.
In his analysis of Troeltsch’s critique of Herrmann, Mark D. Chapman
investigates how Herrmann isolates the theological from the non-
theological by building his dogmatics and his ethics on the ground or
the grounding—in German, Herrmann refers to ‘Grund’137—of an experi-
ence of trust which is ‘self-authenticating.’138 For Herrmann, a theological
approach is concerned with inward experience, while a non-theological
approach is concerned with outward experience.139 Troeltsch argues
against such isolationism. His critique concentrates on Herrmann’s lack
of appreciation for representation.140 For Troeltsch, experience is inward
and outward, direct and indirect. Considering Troeltsch’s controversy
with Herrmann’s isolationism, it is reasonable to assume that Troeltsch
avoids the concept of trust because it is associated with theologies like
Herrmann’s—theologies which seek to safeguard Christianity from his-
torical–cultural flux by rooting it in a ‘pure’ trust.
133
See Andreas Hunziker, ‘Glaube als radikales Vertruaen?,’ in Gottvertrauen, 157–294.
134
Wilhelm Herrmann, The Communion of the Christian with God: Described on the Basis of
Luther’s Statements, trans. J. Sandys Stanion (London: Williams, 1906), 59–64. See Brent
W. Sockness, ‘The Ideal and the Historical in the Christology of Wilhelm Herrmann,’ The
Journal of Religion 72/3 (1992), 366–388.
135
Sockness, ‘The Ideal and the Historical in the Christology of Wilhelm Herrmann,’
384–485.
136
Ibid., 387.
137
See Wilhelm Herrmann, ‘Grund und Inhalt des Glaubens,’ in Wilhelm Herrmann,
Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. Friedrich W. Schmidt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923), 275–294.
See also Hunziker, ‘Glaube als radikales Vertrauen,’ 269–270.
138
Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 97.
139
Ibid., 93.
140
Ibid., 107.
60 U. SCHMIEDEL
However, when Troeltsch restricts ‘trust’ to fides qua in contrast to

fides quae, he backhandedly buys into the purification of experience which
he criticizes. He evaluates ‘trust’ as event without expression. Within
Troeltsch’s triangle of event, expression and experience, however, this
evaluation is absurd. Experience is co-constituted by event and expres-
sion. Hence, the distinction between event and expression is merely ana-
lytical: in actual experience, both are always already intertwined. Turning
Troeltsch against Troeltsch, I am criticizing the reduction of ‘trust’ into
an event without an expression. To recall the concept of trust which I
defined in Chap. 1, trust is a relation to the other which is characterized
by openness to the other’s otherness. Trust involves the event of otherness
and the expression of otherness. Thus, the concept of trust is applicable to
Troeltsch’s account of religious relationality.
In her survey of theological theories of trust, Cornelia Richter sug-
gests that Troeltsch might be interpreted as a pioneer of the theorization
of trust in theology.141 If, following her lead, Troeltsch’s reflections on
the relationality of religion are assessed as a tacit theory of trust, then the
assessment conveys the contours of a concept of community which circles
around trust. I suggest that the tacit theory of trust in Troeltsch’s ‘Die
Selbständigkeit der Religion’ interrelates the relation to the finite other
and the relation to the infinite other. The interrelation is instructive for a
conceptualization of church because it counters the Jamesian separation of
the self’s relation to the infinite other (what James calls ‘religion’) from the
self’s relation to the finite other (what James calls ‘second-hand-religion’)
which leads to the interiorization and individualization of religion.
Troeltsch’s assessment of dogmatics as ‘petrification (Versteinerung)’142
or ‘ossification (Verknöcherung)’143 of religion appears to approximate
James’s: ‘The great geniuses know nothing about it, only their heirs start
the business of systematization … thus dressing their heroes in dogmatic
straitjackets.’144 But whether one follows Troeltsch’s romantic(izing) ref-
erence to the ‘geniuses’ of religion, it is crucial to note how Troeltsch’s
notion of dogmatization differs from James’s. For James, the expression
of the experience implies its contamination which is why he separates fides
qua and fides quae. Accordingly, he draws a distinction between primary
141
Again, see Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen,’ 34.
142
SR, 425.
143
SR, 436.
144
SR, 425.
personal (and apparently undogmatic) and secondary communal (and

apparently dogmatic) religion.145 Yet, Troeltsch argues against James’s
separation. He points out that the expression cannot completely capture
the event. Nonetheless, without expression of the event, there would be
no experience. Dogmatization, for Troeltsch, then, refers to the ‘stones’
(petrification) and ‘bones’ (ossification) of a dogmatics which would
solidify the drive for difference by claiming that the ultimate unknow-
ability of God has been overcome, as if it had arrived at a clear-cut con-
cept of the radical other either as completely knowable or as completely
unknowable.146
Troeltsch’s triangle of event, expression and experience allows him to
balance the demands for the construction of conceptions of the other and
for the destruction of conceptions of the other. Like James, Troeltsch
argues that if the relation to the other is expressed in concepts which are
too solid, the relation is lost.147 The result would be an expression of the
other without an event of the other—which is to say, the other could not
be experienced. Unlike James, Troeltsch also argues that if the relation
to the other is expressed in concepts which are too liquid, the relation is
lost.148 The result would be an event of the other without an expression of
the other—which is to say, the other could not be experienced. Combining
elements of cataphatic and apophatic theology, Troeltsch balances experi-
ence in-between event and expression. He argues that the event has to
be expressed in terms which are neither too solid nor too liquid. Hence,
what Troeltsch advocates is elastic terms. Of course, Troeltsch employs
the concept of elasticity in his ecclesiology, but there is no reason not to
transfer it to his theo-logy.149 The acknowledgment of the knowability of
God, on the one hand, and of the unknowability of God, on the other,
provokes Troeltsch neither to demand a solid dogmatization of religion
nor to demand a liquid de-dogmatization of religion.150 Instead, Troeltsch
demands a stance between liquidity and solidity which abides in a relation
145
See again Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 54–56.
146
Here, Troeltsch anticipates Lash’s critique of James. See ibid., 51–70.
147
See also WL, 825–826.
148
Ibid.
149
See KG, 104.
150
Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 443, argues that Troeltsch offers a ‘program for the de-
dogmatization of religion (Programm einer Entdogmatisierung der Religion).’ However, in
comparison to James’s demand for de-dogmatization, Troeltsch’s ‘program’ is to be located
in-between dogmatization and de-dogmatization.
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to the other characterized by openness to otherness. Theology, thinking

and talking about God, then, is to be elasticized.
According to Troeltsch, ecclesiology mirrors theology. Building on
the triangle of event, expression and experience, he concludes that the
transmission of religion ‘always already (stets)’ occurs through ‘the transfer
of religious imagination (Vermittelung der religiösen Vorstellungswelt).’151
According to Troeltsch, the community is the site for such transfers.152
Troeltsch concurs with James’s critique of churches, stressing the rigidity
with which churches put pressure on Christians and non-Christians alike
to conform to dogmatically domesticated orthodoxies.153 He continues,
however, that churches can impact religion either negatively or positively,
depending on the ecclesiology of the respective church: churches can
be structures of support as much as structures of suppression. Crucially,
he cautions against two ecclesiological risks which mirror the dangers of
either dogmatizations which are too solid or de-dogmatizations which
are too liquid. Returning to the ecclesiological double-bind which I ana-
lyzed above, I term these risks the ‘postliberal risk’ and the ‘liberal risk,’
respectively.
As for the ecclesiological risk in postliberal solidity, Troeltsch—like
James—argues that if the communal expression is prioritized over the per-
sonal event, the prioritization results in a structure of community which
is too solid.154 Here, one could imagine a religious collectivism which does
not allow for personal variations—the repetition of the collectivized same
without alterity. In order to avoid this solidifying risk, the community must
allow persons to challenge the traditions of the community. Otherwise,
the community would separate the event from the expression, perverting
religion from a relation into a reflection. The person would be concerned
with the traditions which reflect the transcendent instead of the transcen-
dent; religion would be nothing but rational assent, ‘Fürwahrhalten’155:
fides quae separated from fides qua. Here, the community would drain the
person.
As for the ecclesiological risk in liberal liquidity (the inversion of the risk
in solidity to which Troeltsch alludes), Troeltsch—unlike James—argues
151
PE, 17.
152
SR, 427–428.
153
SR, 436.
154
SR, 427.
155
SR, 436.
that if the personal event is prioritized over the communal expression, the
prioritization results in a structure of community which is too liquid.156
Here, one could imagine a religious individualism which does not allow
for communal traditions—the repetition of the individualized same with-
out alterity. In order to avoid this liquefying risk, the subject must allow
the community to challenge her challenges of the community. Otherwise,
the subject would separate the event from the expression: fides qua sepa-
rated from fides quae. Thus, she would lose the ability to experience the
event. Eventually, the person would misinterpret her expressions of the
event for the event because her interpretation could not be challenged.157
Here, the person would drain the community.
I have structured these ecclesiological risks in parallel: solidifying
dogmatization and liquefying de-dogmatization turn community into a
structure which prevents religious relationality: if a church strips one’s
relation to the finite other of its otherness (either through collectivization
or through individualization), the attack on alterity impacts one’s rela-
tion to the infinite other. Thus, for Troeltsch, religion is neither simply
a matter of individual de-dogmatization nor simply a matter of collective
dogmatization. Troeltsch seeks to steer ecclesiology in-between collectiv-
ism and individualism, stressing that experience and expression cannot be
separated because both are dependent on the subject’s imagination. To
trigger religious imagination, a dynamic between experience and expres-
sion is indispensable. If a church evokes a dynamic in which persons can
challenge their communities as much as communities can challenge their
persons, the church is turned from a structure of religious suppression
into a structure of religious support because it is transformed into a space
where one can encounter the other. Countering James’s privatization of
religion, Troeltsch anchors relationality not in a solitary subject but in-
between social subjects.
In conclusion, ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion’ corroborates
Troeltsch’s critique of James’s interpretation of religion. Like James,
Troeltsch takes the experience of transcendence as a point of departure
for the exploration of trust in the transcendent. But, unlike James, he
combines synchronic and diachronic approaches. Like James, Troeltsch
assumes that religion revolves around the experience of alterity—the oth-
erness of the other. But, unlike James, Troeltsch argues that the experi-
SR, 427–428.
156
SR, 435–436.
157
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ence implies a relation to the other whose otherness is experienced. For

Troeltsch, relationality is at the core of religiosity. He highlights that trust
in the transcendent ought not to be reduced to either the religious subject
or the religious object.
Phenomenologically, religion cultivates a spectrum of experiences.
Troeltsch characterizes the relation to the transcendent as a mystery
which defies conclusive conceptualization. Troeltsch’s characterization
of the relationality of religion resonates with James’s phenomenology of
trust. But Troeltsch is more careful than James. While James argues that
the claim to conceptualization contaminates trust, Troeltsch argues that
it is the claim to complete conceptualization which contaminates trust.
Troeltsch’s triangle of event, expression and experience implies that trust
is always already ineffable and effable, immediate and mediate, pure and
impure, and personal and communal: the event needs to be expressed in
order to be experienced. The religious relation to the transcendent cannot
be experienced without language. Language puts a subject in the position
to draw the distinction between transcendence and immanence in the first
place.158 Accordingly, religion is a combination of the primary and the sec-
ondary; it always already involves what James calls ‘the second hand.’ But
for Troeltsch, the ‘second hand’ is not to be eliminated but to be empha-
sized. The relation between the immanent and the transcendent implies a
tension between ineffability and effability which drives the deconstructive
dynamics of religion.
For Troeltsch, religions which focus on relationality surpass religions
which do not focus on relationality. Although ‘Die Selbständigkeit der
Religion’ remains in the clutches of a teleology which interprets Christianity
as the culmination of (the history of) religion, Troeltsch’s conclusion is
cautious. Faith is crucial for both the perception and the conception of the
dynamic drive for difference. Theologically, it is instructive that Troeltsch
uses ‘revelation’ not to describe a point in history, but to describe a pro-
cess in history. He conceives of a dynamics of revelation which implies
that tradition is part of revelation and that revelation is part of tradition.
Consequently, he portrays the theological and the ecclesiological constitu-
tion of communities much more favorably than James. For Troeltsch, the
theology and the ecclesiology of a community function as the sites for the
158
CF, 48–49. See also, Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 24–25. For explorations of
poetic expressions of transcendence, see the contributions to The Poetics of Transcendence,
ed. Elisa Heinämäki, P. M. Mehtonen and Antti Salminen (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
expression of the event in the experience. Troeltsch’s account of religion

implies his elasticization of ecclesiology.
Troeltsch’s reception of James’s concept of the experience of transcen-
dence, then, allows me to redefine the core concern of ecclesiology as
what I call ‘togetherness of trust,’ a way of being together which interre-
lates the relations to the finite other with the relations to the infinite other.
CHAPTER 3
The Togetherness of Trust
In Chaps. 1 and 2, I explored the Jamesian account of the experience of

transcendence and Ernst Troeltsch’s reception of the Jamesian account of
the experience of transcendence. William James uses ‘trust’ to interpret
experiences of transcendence. For him, trust is a two-track concept: the
relation of trust requires the presumption of trust as much as the presump-
tion of trust requires the relation of trust. Because of its creative circu-
larity, trust, as James asserts, is ‘previous,’ ‘precursive’ and ‘preliminary.’
Yet, James interiorizes and individualizes trust, thus losing track of the
relationality of religion. For Troeltsch, however, relationality is the core
of religion. Countering James’s separation of experience and expression,
he proposes a triangle of event, expression and experience. Experience
is co-constituted by event (James’s ‘immediate’ experience) and expres-
sion (James’s ‘mediate’ experience). Accordingly, Troeltsch argues that
communities offer resources to provoke and to preserve experiences of
transcendence.
In this chapter, I will argue that trust involves a connection between the
experience of the transcendence of the finite other and the experience of
the transcendence of the infinite other—a connection which is implied in
the Jamesian circle of trust. Trust, a relation to the other which is charac-
terized by openness to otherness, connects the relation to the finite other
with the relation to the infinite other. In order to argue for this connec-
tion, I seek to spell out the structural similarities between the experience
of trust in the finite other and the experience of trust in the infinite other.

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With the notion of ‘structural similarities,’ I stress the characteristics which

are common to both experiences of trust. Although it would be exciting
to explore the dissimilarities between trust in the creature and trust in the
creator as well, my argument is that the similarities form and inform the
connections of creature and creator in the experience of trust.
Again, I proceed in three steps. In step 1, I will turn from classic to con-
temporary accounts of the experience of transcendence in order to clarify
how transcendence implies the destabilization of the distinction between
religious and non-religious experience. Transcendence is experienced
whenever the other is encountered in trust, because openness to other-
ness allows the other to transcend me—irrespective of whether the other
is finite or infinite. In order to dispel any suspicion that my conceptualiza-
tion of trust minimizes the creator to the size of the creature or maximizes
the creature to the size of the creator, I will analyze Ingolf U. Dalferth’s
account of trust in step 2. Dalferth’s account is rooted in a categorical
contradistinction between the immanent and the transcendent. Criticizing
both theological and non-theological reductionisms in the interpretation
of transcendence, I will conclude in step 3 that trust points to the relation
to the transformative transcendence of finite and infinite other. In trust,
the relation to the finite other might become an opening to the relation to
the infinite other and the relation to the infinite other might become an
opening to the relation to the finite other. The web of relations in which
the relation to the finite other interrelates with the relation to the infinite
other is what I will term togetherness of trust. The open(ed) church which
resists both sociological and theological closure is centered in the togeth-
erness of trust.
Transcendence and Transformation
How can one relate to the other who transcends and transforms one’s
expectations and evaluations of her? Turning from classical to contem-
porary accounts, I aim to account for the experience of transcendence
in a way which blurs the boundaries between religious and non-religious
experience in order to explore relations to the finite other and relations
to the infinite other as sites for the experience of a transcendence which
transforms the self. I will argue that the concept of transcendence allows
for the destabilization of the distinction between extraordinary religious
experience and ordinary non-religious experience, because transcendence
might be experienced whenever the other is encountered—openness to
THE TOGETHERNESS OF TRUST 69
the other is what allows the other to transcend the self. I have chosen Hans
Joas’s sociologically oriented account of the experience of transcendence
and Jörg Lauster’s theologically oriented account of the experience of
transcendence. Both of them expand on James and on Troeltsch’s recep-
tion of James. Thus, their accounts are instructive for a portrayal of the
experience of transcendence which is compatible with ongoing sociologi-
cal and theological discussions.
Although inspired by James, Joas rarely refers to the terminology of
‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ experience. Rather, he employs the concept
‘experience of self-transcendence (Erfahrung der Selbsttranszendenz).’1
According to Joas, this concept captures experiences in which a subject
‘transcends herself.’2 This self-transcending of the subject is experienced
not as a ‘pulling’ but as a ‘being-pulled’ beyond the confines of the self,
such as in the experience of what is aptly articulated as ‘falling’ in love.3
‘Ergriffensein,’ ‘being-grasped,’ is the term Joas uses; reminiscent of the
phenomenology of religion, he points out that such a being-grasped pro-
vokes feelings of both security and insecurity.4
Who is the agent of self-transcendence? In line with Troeltsch, Joas
assesses the self as simultaneously active and passive. When he depicts
the experience of self-transcendence, he shifts between the self as gram-
matical object and the self as grammatical subject—sometimes within
the space of one sentence.5 However, Joas does not discuss the agency
of self-transcendence in detail. Joas’s point is that experiences of self-
transcendence are anthropologically anchored: ‘There is no doubt that we
have such experiences’—regardless of whether we self-identify as religious
or as non-religious.6 Hence, to separate a religious experience in which the
self is transcended (and thus is assumed to be passive) from a non-religious
1
Joas refers to the ‘experience of self-transcendence’ in Die Entstehung der Werte. See also
the lectures collected in Braucht der Mensch Religion? Über Erfahrungen der Selbsttranszendenz
(Freiburg: Herder, 2003). ET: Do We Need Religion? On the Experience of Self-Transcendence,
trans. Alex Skinner (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2008).
2
Hans Joas, ‘Do We Need Religion?,’ in Do We Need Religion?, 7.
3
Ibid.
4
Hans Joas, ‘Braucht der Mensch Religion?,’ in Braucht der Mensch Religion?, 17, ET: 7.
5
Joas, ‘Do We Need Religion?,’ 7.
6
Ibid. Joas provides a long list of examples of experiences of self-transcendence from reli-
gious as well as non-religious contexts. See also Hans Joas, ‘“Diese Erfahrung ist universell”:
Gläubige haben kein Geheimwissen, sagt der Soziologe Hans Joas. Sie reden nur anders,’
Zeit Wissen 1 (2013), 24–28.
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experience in which the self transcends (and thus is assumed to be active)

would miss the point.
What qualifies the experience of self-transcendence as either reli-
gious or non-religious is not the experience, but the articulation or the
interpretation of the experience.7 Joas uses ‘articulation’ and ‘interpre-
tation’ interchangeably; however, ‘interpretation’—in German he writes
‘Deutung’8—takes center-stage, because on Joas’s account of the experi-
ence of self-transcendence, there is ‘a gap’ between the experience and
the expression of the experience.9 The German term Deutung points to
this gap which opens an interpretative space; thus, Deutung is used in
cases where a plurality of interpretations is inevitable.10 Joas criticizes
the (Jamesian) notion that interpretation contaminates the experience it
interprets.11 For him, there is no re-turn behind the linguistic turn.12 He
argues that all experiences are excessive: experiences always already exceed
their expression.13 Even the excess has to be expressed. Through language
one can articulate an experience and one can articulate that one cannot
articulate an experience.14 Echoing the drive for difference so crucial to
Troeltsch’s account of the experience of transcendence, Joas stresses the
creativity which is involved in the excess. The fact that experience can-
not be expressed completely provokes creative expression after creative
expression.15
Correspondingly, Joas argues that experiences of self-transcendence
require expressions and that expressions of self-transcendence require
experiences.16 Joas comes closer to Troeltsch’s reception of James than
to James: experience and expression are closely connected.17 For Joas,
7
Ibid., 11.
8
Joas, ‘Braucht der Mensch Religion?,’ 22.
9
10
See Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 9–30.
11
Hans Joas, ‘On the Articulation of Experience,’ in Do We Need Religion?, 37–48.
12
Ibid., 37–38.
13
Ibid., 42.
14
Ibid., 43.
15
Ibid., 44. See also Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action, trans. Jeremy Ganes and Paul
Keast (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
16
Joas, ‘Do We Need Religion?,’ 12–13.
17
See Joas’s account of Troeltsch in Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit.’ Joas’s lectures on the
experience of self-transcendence were written before he discovered Troeltsch. See Joas,
‘Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbindung,’ 51.
the experience of self-transcendence ‘can start at both ends’18: an inter-

pretation can be triggered by an experience of self-transcendence and an
experience of self-transcendence can be triggered by an interpretation.19
What follows from Joas’s account is that certain experiences trigger certain
interpretations and that certain interpretations trigger certain experiences.
Drawing on the notion of the circle of trust in James’s The Will to Believe
which I discussed in Chap. 1, Joas points to ‘sacramental experiences’20 to
identify the significance of interpretation. Only if one takes Jesus’s inter-
pretation of the bread he shared, ‘Take, eat, this is my body,’ seriously, can
one eat more than bread during the Eucharist. Without the interpretative
words of institution, the bread remains bread.21 Hence, along the lines
of Troeltsch, Joas concludes that ‘traditions’ and ‘institutions’ are vital
to excite and to express experiences of self-transcendence because they
preserve interpretations like Jesus’s ‘This is my body.’22
The excitations and expressions of experience through traditions
and institutions are the concern of Lauster’s account of religion as
‘Lebensdeutung,’ ‘interpretation of life.’ The concept of ‘Deutung’ is also
vital for Lauster.23 He argues that subjects create their life-world through
the ‘interpretation (Deutung)’ of their world.24 What distinguishes reli-
gious from non-religious subjects is the ‘how’ of their respective inter-
pretations.25 Is the world interpreted with or without a ‘reference to
transcendence (Transzendenzbezug)’?26 For Lauster, the reference (not
necessarily the relation) to transcendence decides whether an experience
counts as religious or as non-religious. While Joas allocates the concept
of transcendence to religious and to non-religious experiences, Lauster
asserts that there is—strictly speaking—no experience of transcendence.27
He locates transcendence on the level of expression rather than on the
level of experience.28 Thus, on Lauster’s account, Joas’s experience of
18
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid., 14.
21
Ibid., 13–14.
22
Ibid., 14.
23
Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 9–30.
24
Ibid., 12.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid., 24.
27
Ibid. with recourse to Immanuel Kant.
28
Ibid. See also Lauster, ‘How To Do Transcendence With Words? The Problem of
Articulation in Religious Experience,’ in Religious Experience Revisited: Expressing the
Inexpressible?, 15–29.
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s elf-transcendence can be interpreted with or without reference to a tran-

scendent.29 Joas’s experience of self-transcendence is the experience of the
transformation of the self through self-transcendence. Lauster argues that
only if this transformative experience is interpreted with reference to a
transcendent outside of the self, the experience counts as religious rather
than non-religious.30 Transcendence functions as a conceptual container
with changing cargoes.
In Religion als Lebensdeutung, Lauster rarely refers to Troeltsch.
Nonetheless, he offers a Troeltschian combination of ‘event,’ ‘expression’
and ‘experience.’31 Countering James’s distinction between a primary
immediate experience and a secondary mediate expression, Lauster argues
that experiences are always already ‘second-hand’ ‘in as much as they are
regulated by the cultural conditions of the subject of experience.’32 Hence,
in order to experience, a subject has to draw on the reservoir of inter-
pretations which has been preserved by traditions and institutions.33 The
‘patterns of interpretation (Deutungsmuster)’ enable the subject to have
experiences in the first place.34 While Joas is more interested in the expe-
rience, Lauster is more interested in the expressions of the experience.35
According to Lauster, the notion of religion as interpretation of life
allows for a rapprochement between liberal theology and the critique of
liberal theology.36 With the liberals (who tend to see experience as pro-
duced by the subject and thus focus on the concept of religion), Lauster
stresses the activity of the subject. With the critics of the liberals (who tend
to see experience as received by the subject and thus focus on the con-
cept of revelation), Lauster stresses the passivity of the subject.37 Building
on his rapprochement, Lauster redefines the task of a hermeneutics of
Christianity today.
29
Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 25. Strictly speaking, Lauster does not offer a defi-
nition of ‘transcendence,’ but he suggests that the term signifies the supersensual or the
supernatural (ibid.).
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid., 23. For Lauster’s account of Troeltsch see Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit.’
32
Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 23.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., 24.
35
However, it is important to bear in mind that both of them reject strict separations of
experience and expression.
36
Ibid., 27–30.
37
Ibid., 27.
Perhaps predictably, his hermeneutics takes Jesus as its point of depar-

ture. The first followers of Jesus interpreted their encounters with the
Nazarene as the ‘in-breaking of transcendence (Transzendenzeinbruch).’38
Jesus transformed their lives in a way which provoked them to interpret
the world with reference to a transcendent: Jesus as the Christ. The trans-
formative in-breaking of transcendence released ‘schemes of interpreta-
tion (Deutungsschemata)’ with which the followers saw the world anew.39
According to Lauster, these schemes of interpretation triggered the trans-
mission of interpretations of the in-breaking of transcendence which
have shaped Christianity.40 The task of the hermeneutics of Christianity
is analyzing and assessing the history (of the effects) of these schemes
of interpretation.41 The criterion for assessment is whether the interpre-
tations confess their own limitations, so to speak.42 Lauster argues that
liberal theology is not a bankrupt project (as its neo-orthodox and neo-
neo-orthodox critics would have it) precisely because it points to the indis-
pensable difference between experience and expression.43
Accordingly, Joas’s more sociological and Lauster’s more theological
understanding of religion validate Troeltsch’s reception of James. The
alternative between experience and expression is a false alternative: experi-
ence is manifested through expression and expression is manifested through
experience. However, there are decidedly different concepts of revelation
at work in the more sociological and in the more theological account.
Joas reserves the concept of revelation for experiences in which experi-
ence and expression fall into one for the experiencing subject: ‘die Erfahrung
geht restlos im Ausdruck auf,’ ‘the experience merges c ompletely into the
38
Ibid., 28.
39
40
Lauster has concentrated on the role and relevance of the Bible for the process of trans-
mission. See ibid., 31–88; and Jörg Lauster, Prinzip und Methode: Die Transformation des
protestantischen Schriftprinzips durch die historisch-kritische Methode von Schleiermacher bis
zur Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).
41
42
In Die Verzauberung der Welt: Eine Kulturgeschichte des Christentums (München:
C.H. Beck, 2014), Lauster has put his program of the hermeneutics of Christianity into
practice. For an English account see my review in Reviews in Religion and Theology 22/2
(2015), 170–173.
43
See Lauster, ‘Liberale Theologie,’ 291–307. See also Lauster, ‘How To Do Transcendence
With Words?’
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expression’—both are ‘indissolubly fused.’44 According to Joas, the fusion

of experience and expression is what distinguishes extraordinary revelatory
experiences from ordinary non-revelatory experiences. He assumes that
every experience exceeds its expression45: such excess might still charac-
terize revelation objectively; subjectively, however, the excess is nullified
in the experience of the human self. The consequence of the fusion of
experience and expression is that, as subjects who have had a revelation,
‘we are then very hesitant even to discuss our interpretation.’46 For Joas,
the congruence of experience and expression is what causes controversy in
religion. Since the subject registers no distinction between experience and
expression, she is not prepared to acknowledge alternative expressions.
Although Joas does not elaborate on the rejection or refusal of the plural-
ity of interpretations, it is clear that intra- and inter-religious controversies
might be traced back to such a concept of revelation.
Lauster also assumes that in revelation experience and expression go
hand in hand.47 The experience of revelation is characterized as an experi-
ence of ‘overpowering (Überwältigtwerden)’ which is triggered by a tran-
scendent—outside, not inside the subject.48 Thus, the subject experiences
herself as responding to revelation: the response combines her reaction and
her action. In contrast to Joas, however, Lauster does not assume revela-
tion to be rooted in an indissoluble fusion of experience and expression.49
When he stresses the excess at the core of the experience of transcendence,
he argues along the lines of Troeltsch who pointed out that experiences of
transcendence are experienced as mysterious: both subjectively and objec-
tively, they can never be expressed completely.50 For Lauster, revelation
does not liquidate the difference between experience and expression. The
excess is what has triggered the creation of the schemes of interpretation
throughout the history of Christianity; nonetheless, Christianity is more
than these schemes of interpretations, because the excess as such cannot
44
Alex Skinner rendered Joas’s statement ‘die Erfahrung geht restlos im Ausdruck auf’ as
‘experience is completely transformed into expression’ although the German retains an ana-
lytical difference between experience and expression. See Joas, ‘Braucht der Mensch
Religion?,’ 24, ET: 12.
45
Joas, ‘On the Articulation of Experience.’
46
47
48
Ibid., 25.
49
Ibid., 27–28.
50
Ibid., 23–25.
be captured.51 Hence, Lauster’s hermeneutics of Christianity is rooted in

the excess of the experience of transcendence—which is to say, the differ-
ence between experience and expression.
What is at stake here is the issue of the effability or the ineffability of
transcendence. Conceptualizing ‘transcendence’ as a transcendent which
is outside rather than inside the subject, Lauster tries to engage with the
issue which Joas omits.52 In particular, Lauster points out that it is precisely
the excess of the experience which makes the experience a revelatory expe-
rience. Here, Lauster agrees with Troeltsch who, as examined in Chap. 2,
argues that the experience of transcendence is expressible and inexpressible
at once. However, Lauster’s core concept of transcendence remains curi-
ously under- if not undefined. To be sure, he uses ‘transcendence’ because
it enables him to characterize distinct and diverse experiences of excess.
But I wonder whether and why the transcendent ‘behind’ the different
and diverse experiences of excess can be assumed to be the same. In order
to escape the assumption of a self-same transcendence which the subject
refers to but not necessarily relates to in the experience of excess, Lauster’s
concept of revelation ought to be connected with Joas’s concept of a
transformative transcendence. What would such a connection look like?
If elaborated on, Joas’s terminology of ‘articulation’ and ‘interpreta-
tion’ allows for an assessment of how transcendence can be character-
ized as simultaneously effable and ineffable. I draw a distinction between
articulation and interpretation within the concept of expression: expres-
sion includes both articulation and interpretation.53 Accordingly, the
experience of transcendence implies that the subject articulates the event
of transcendence. But if transcendence means that the subject’s self is tran-
scended in the event of transcendence, her interpretation of the event of
transcendence relativizes her articulation of the event of transcendence.54
51
Lauster, Die Verzauberung, 617.
52
In ‘Do We Need Religion?,’ Joas makes no mention of the issue of the in/effability of
transcendence. Given that he emphasizes the excess of the experience over the expression in
‘On the Articulation of Experience,’ his silence on this issue is puzzling.
53
The distinction between articulation and interpretation comes close to the slogan of
‘Erfahrung mit der Erfahrung’ which is easily traced back to Eberhard Jüngel, Unterwegs zur
Sache: Theologische Erörterungen (München: Christoph Kaiser Verlag, 1972), 8; and Gerhard
Ebeling, ‘Die Klage über das Erfahrungsdefizit der Theologie als Frage nach ihrer Sache,’ in
Wort und Glaube, vol. 3 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1975), 3–28.
54
Both dimensions of expression are interpretative. Hence, what I call ‘articulation’ could
also be described as the interpretation of the event, and what I call ‘interpretation’ could also
be described as the interpretation of the interpretation of the event.
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Described differently, the subject articulates the experience as experience

of transcendence. But simultaneously she interprets her articulation as
inadequate because the articulation cannot characterize transcendence
completely. The transcendent would not transform her if transcendence
could be conceptually captured.
To be sure, the experiences of transcendence which I am analyzing
with my admittedly abstract account of articulation and interpretation are
everyday experiences. Consider the cases in which one is surprised by the
other. In the relation to my spouse, for instance, I form mental images of
who she is for me. But the relation between us is in danger if I confine
her to these images. Rather, our relation rests on my openness to the
fact that she is other than I imagine her to be. She escapes or exceeds my
imagination. Thus, the play between my creation of images of her (on the
level of articulation) and my correction of images of her (on the level of
interpretation) is indispensable for me to relate to my spouse. Through
this play, I experience the transformativity of her transcendence whenever
she surprises me. Transcendence is ultimately undeterminable. Hence, in
order to account for the effability and for the ineffability of the excess in
the experiences of the other, the (Troeltschian) triangle of event, expres-
sion and experience requires a dialectical concept of expression: articula-
tion and interpretation.55
Building on Joas, I describe and define ‘transcendence’ functionally
rather than substantially—by what it does, so to speak.56 What does the
transcendent do? It transforms the subject’s self in a way which cannot be
curtailed or controlled by the self. Accordingly, my concept of transcen-
dence comes close to Joas’s concept of transformative self-transcendence.
But I prefer to speak of ‘transcendence’ rather than ‘self-transcendence’
55
By ‘articulation,’ I mean the way in which a subject registers internal and external stim-
uli. Hence, ‘articulation’ might capture different forms of language, verbal and non-verbal.
It includes the ‘protolanguage’ which is exemplified by what neuroscientists refer to as ‘lim-
bic speech’: utterances like ‘oh’ or ‘uh’ or ‘ah’ relating to stimuli which the limbic sphere
processes instantaneously. In limbic speech, the event is registered, but not reflected. Graham
Ward, Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don’t (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), 58–59.
Crucially, limbic speech is oriented toward the other. As Ward puts it, ‘limbic speech is
“infective”’ (ibid., 59).
56
I borrow the distinction between functional and substantial approaches to definitions
from the controversial conversations about the concept of religion: the functional approach
focuses on what religion does, while the substantial approach focuses on what religion
declares. For a short summary, see Grace Davie, The Sociology of Religion (London: Sage,
2007), 19–20.
to stress, following Troeltsch, and Lauster after Troeltsch, that the trans-
formation is experienced as a transformation triggered from the outside
rather than the inside: the transformative transcendent is both other and
outside of the self.
Because it is conceptualized functionally rather than substantially, my
concept of transcendence requires an account of revelation which stresses
the divergence rather than the convergence between experience and expres-
sion—the account which Lauster has offered. The transformation of the
subject’s self is registered by the subject through the difference between
the articulation and the interpretation of the experience. The difference
is at the core of what I dubbed the drive for difference in Troeltsch’s her-
meneutical combination of the synchronic and the diachronic approach to
religion. The drive for difference which prompts and propels the histori-
cal–cultural development of religion can thus be assessed as a transforming
transcendence which is ultimately undeterminable.
Finally, the difference between the dimensions of articulation and
interpretation is instructive for the concepts of religious and non-religious
experience. If transcendence is experienced as a transformation—regis-
tered by a difference between one’s articulation and one’s interpretation
of the experience—then transcendence is triggered by the other. Alterity,
the otherness of the other, implies that the other differs from one’s con-
cept of the other. One is surprised by the other—otherwise the other
would not be other. Surprisingly, the other transcends one’s concept of
the other.57 I will return to the concept of transcendence below. What is
important here is that both the ‘transcendent’ other (theologically speak-
ing, the creator) and the ‘immanent’ other (theologically speaking, the
creature) transcend one’s concepts of them. Thus, it is more precise to
refer to the ‘finite other’ and the ‘infinite other’ (as I have throughout
my study), because both others are transcending. In the exposure to any
other—be it the other or the self as other—I might be transformed.58
57
My concept of transcendence comes close to the typology of minor, medium and maxi-
mum transcendences which Thomas Luckmann developed in the appendix to the re-transla-
tion of The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York:
Macmillan, 1967) into German. See Thomas Luckmann, Die unsichtbare Religion (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1991), 166–171. However, Luckmann neither discussed nor defined the signifi-
cance of alterity for the experience of transcendence.
58
As Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1992), argued, the self can also be conceived of as other.
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Experientially, the exposure to the finite other and the exposure to the
infinite other are structurally similar.
Accordingly, on my account, the distinction between religious and non-
religious experience is not drawn by the engagement with transcendence.
Both the finite and the infinite other confront a subject with a transforma-
tive transcendence. Religion, I am arguing, is rooted in the radical dis-
sonance between the articulation and the interpretation of the experience
of transcendence: religious experience is the hermeneutical experience in
which one’s interpretation highlights the radical inadequacy of one’s artic-
ulation.59 What follows from the structural similarities between the experi-
ence of the finite other’s transcendence and the experience of the infinite
other’s transcendence is that transcendence might be experienced in the
encounter with both God and God’s creature. Whenever I am open to the
other, I allow the other to transcend and to transform myself.
To summarize, the shift from classical accounts of religion to con-
temporary accounts of religion has allowed me to rethink the distinction
between what counts as religious experience and what counts as non-
religious experience. Troeltsch’s critique of James’s contrast between
immediate experience and mediate expression has been validated. The
contemporary accounts by both Joas and Lauster acknowledge the com-
plex connection between experience and expression; they come close to
the Troeltschian triangle of event, expression and experience. Thus, they
point to the seminal significance of traditions and institutions for both the
excitation and the expression of experiences of transcendence.
The decisive difference between the more sociological account by
Joas and the more theological account by Lauster lies in their respec-
tive concept of revelation: while Joas defines revelation through the
convergence between experience and expression, Lauster defines revela-
tion through the divergence between experience and expression. Taking
inspiration from Joas’s concept of transformative (self)transcendence, I
have argued for a functional as opposed to a substantial conceptualization
which defines transcendence by what it does: namely, to transform. Yet,
in order to account for how the subject registers the transformative tran-
scendent, I have built on Lauster’s emphasis on the difference between
59
For the concept of hermeneutical experience, see Werner G. Jeanrond, ‘The Complexity
of Hermeneutical Experience: Transcendence and Transformation,’ in Religious Experience
Revisited: Expressing the Inexpressible?, 137–153.
experience and expression. I have drawn a distinction within the concept

of expression between its dimension of articulation and its dimension of
interpretation. If the subject’s interpretation relativizes the subject’s artic-
ulation—if she realizes a difference between these two dimensions—she
registers transcendence. Revelation is thus conceptualized not through
the congruence of articulation and interpretation, but through the diver-
gence of articulation and interpretation. The dissonance triggers the drive
for difference which Troeltsch included in his concept of revelation. In
Troeltsch’s terminology, the exciter is present in the excitation, but nei-
ther fully nor finally. Building on Troeltsch, transcendence cannot be com-
pletely conceptualized.
As a consequence, any other—finite or infinite—might confront the
subject with transformative transcendence in so far as the other transcends
one’s concepts of the other: the exposure to the finite other and the expo-
sure to the infinite other are structurally similar. The relationship between a
more radical difference and a more routine difference between articulation
and interpretation stresses that a clear-cut distinction between religious
experience and non-religious experience is impossible. Both are rooted in
transcendence. My account of transcendence is not intended to turn God
into a creature or to turn a creature into God. Instead, it is intended to
demonstrate that the way a subject encounters the creator and the way a
subject encounters the creature are inextricably interwoven. What is at
stake in both encounters is the subject’s engagement (or, indeed, disen-
gagement) with the transformative transcendence of the other.
Transformation and Trust
To recall the conclusions drawn from the Jamesian circle of trust in Chap. 1:
I conceive of trust as a relation to the other which is characterized by
openness to the other’s otherness. When one trusts the other, one relates
to her without confining or controlling her alterity: one allows the other
to transform oneself. Accordingly, I will argue that ‘trust’ encapsulates an
experiential connection between the relation to the finite other and the
relation to the infinite other. If the transcendence of the creature and the
transcendence of the creator are structurally similar, then trust in God’s
creature might be a gateway for the radical experience of God as much
as trust in God might be a gateway for the routine experience of God’s
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creature.60 The way one relates to God’s creature impacts the way one
relates to God and the way one relates to God impacts the way one relates
to God’s creature—admittedly an abstract articulation of the double com-
mandment of love (Mark 12:29–31; Matthew 22:37–40; Luke 10:25–28;
see also John 13:34–35).61 Whether the transcendence of these others is
experienced as transformative or non-transformative depends on whether
one relates to the transcendent in trust (thus allowing the other to trans-
form oneself) or in distrust (thus not allowing the other to transform
oneself). Trust, I aim to argue, is the way to relate to the transformative
transcendence which is inherent in the confrontation with the other.62 In
what I will term ‘togetherness of trust,’ then, the relation to the finite
other and the relation to the infinite other are interrelated.
Admittedly, to argue that the relation to God corresponds to the rela-
tion to God’s creature and that the relation to God’s creature corresponds
60
Within Christian theology, the interrelation of the relation to the finite other with the
relation to the infinite other is commonly conceived of as a one-way track: the relation to
God is seen as that which enables the relation to God’s creatures, but the relation to God’s
creatures is not seen as that which enables the relation to God. Drawing on Martin Buber’s
philosophy of dialogical personalism, Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 178–218, points to
both ways in which the interrelated relations might work. Building on Buber, Lash is skepti-
cal of the concept of experience which could confine the relation to the subject who experi-
ences the relation (ibid., 242). While I appreciate the danger of reducing what happens
‘in-between’ subjects to what happens ‘in’ subjects, I retain the concept of experience in
order to point to the experiential impact of the interrelated relations.
61
The reference to the double commandment of love blurs the boundaries between the
semantic fields of love (which includes moments of trust) and trust (which includes moments
of love). When I define ‘trust’ as a relation which is characterized by openness to the other’s
otherness, I come close to Werner G. Jeanrond’s concept of love which emphasizes both
relationality and alterity. See Werner G. Jeanrond, A Theology of Love (London: T&T Clark,
2010). I chose the concept of trust, because—unlike ‘love’—‘trust’ stresses the risk which is
involved in any relation to the other. Thus, it escapes the ‘trivialization’ from which the
concept of love suffers in contemporary culture—a trivialization which strips ‘love’ of the
‘full force of otherness.’ See Werner G. Jeanrond, ‘Love,’ in The Oxford Handbook for
Theology and Modern European Thought, 250. For a detailed discussion of Jeanrond’s con-
cept of love, see Ulrich Schmiedel, ‘(Instead of the) Introduction: Open to the Other. The
Dynamics of Difference in Werner G. Jeanrond’s Hermeneutical Theology,’ in Dynamics of
Difference: Christianity and Alterity: A Festschrift for Werner G. Jeanrond, ed. Ulrich
Schmiedel and James M. Matarazzo, Jr. (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 1–16.
62
When I refer to trust as ‘the’ way to relate to the transformative transcendence of the
other, my point is not to confine all experiences of a transformative transcendence to trust.
Rather, my point is to emphasize the particularly promising potential for transformation
inherent in trust.
to the relation to God might be suspect to both theologians and non-

theologians. It suspiciously smells of reductionism; in theological termi-
nology, it sounds idolatrous. In order to dispel the suspicion of idolatry,
I will engage with Ingolf U. Dalferth’s concepts of ‘trust’ and ‘transcen-
dence.’ Dalferth’s concepts are promising, because he also criticizes the
interiorization and the individualization of trust against which I have
argued above in Chaps. 1 and 2.63 However, his account separates ‘trust’
from ‘trust in God’ in order to defend the categorical contradistinction
between creator and creation. Thus, a constructive critique of Dalferth’s
depiction of trust and transcendence might substantiate my account of the
experience of transcendence which locates transcendence in both the finite
and the infinite other.
What is trust? According to Dalferth, trust is a ‘mode (Modus)’ of the
practice of community.64 Although he assumes that community might be
practiced in the modes of ‘mistrust’ (an unintentional lack of trust), ‘dis-
trust’ (an intentional lack of trust), or trust,65 trust makes a difference
to the community’s practice: through trust, a community goes beyond
confinement and control.66 Dalferth argues that if it does foster trust, the
community is ‘humane’; and if it does not foster trust, the community is
‘inhumane.’67 To live one’s life as both someone who is trusted and some-
one who is trusting is what makes one’s life humane. Dalferth contends
that if someone is neither trusted nor trusting, her humanity withers: she
63
Dalferth has explored trust in a variety of publications which he tied together in Ingolf
U. Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften: Christlicher Glaube und menschliche Passionen
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). Together with Simon Peng-Keller, he directed the trans-
disciplinary research project ‘Vertrauen Verstehen’ at the University of Zurich from 2009 to
2012. The project resulted in a ‘trilogy of trust’ edited by Ingolf U. Dalferth and Simon
Peng-Keller, consisting of the volumes Kommunikation des Vertrauens; Gottvertrauen: Die
ökumensiche Diksussion um die fiducia; and Grundvertrauen: Hermeneutik eines
Grenzphänomens. See also my review article on the trilogy of trust, Ulrich Schmiedel,
‘Vertrauen Verstanden? Zur Vertrauenstriologie von Ingolf U. Dalferth und Simon Peng-
Keller,’ Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 56/3 (2014),
379–392.
64
Dalferth, Leidenschaften, 270. See also Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 406–434, esp.
410.
65
Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘“In God We Trust”: Trust, Mistrust and Distrust as Modes of
Orientation,’ in Trust, Sociality and Selfhood, ed. Arne Grøn and Claudia Welz (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 136.
66
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 412. See also Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen ist men-
schlich,’ Hermeneutische Blätter, 2 (2010), 142–157.
67
Ibid.
82 U. SCHMIEDEL
fails to realize the possibilities of her life; for her, the potential is confined
to the actual.68 There is no room for transcendence and transformation.
Hence, according to Dalferth, trust is a descriptive as well as a prescriptive
concept.69 It refers to how persons live and to how persons ought to live,
indicating what a humane community looks like.70
Grammatically, Dalferth assesses trust as a ‘three-place relation’71: X
trusts Y with reference to Z.72 The relation between ‘truster’ (X) and
‘trustee’ (Y) refers to ‘a domain of action or interaction’ (Z) in which the
trustee is entrusted by the truster.73 Dalferth is interested in the respon-
siveness of the relation of trust. Trustworthiness is the response to the gift
of trust, a gift which one cannot give oneself.74 But the response is not
automatic: the trustee might turn out to be either trustworthy or non-
trustworthy, but in any case she requires the gift of trust from the truster
to prove her trustworthiness.
Dalferth also analyzes the limits of trust. For him, the definition of
these limits comes down to the individual person: it differs from person
to person whether and when she can or cannot trust the other.75 Yet,
Dalferth suggests ‘a rule of thumb’ which distinguishes trust according to
the trustee: in the case of persons, one should ‘place trust before distrust’;
and in the case of institutions, one should ‘place distrust before trust.’76
For both cases, he stresses the significance of the person’s community.
If the community creates a climate of trust, it will support trust; if the
68
Ibid., 146–149.
69
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 410–411.
70
Dalferth, Leidenschaften, 271.
71
Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 138.
72
Dalferth, Leidenschaften, 276; and Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 413.
73
Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 138 (emphasis in the original). For the qualification of
trust as personal or impersonal, Dalferth distinguishes ‘Vertrauen’ from ‘Vertrautheit’: per-
sonal trust is conceived of as ‘Vertrauen’; impersonal trust is conceived of as ‘Vertrautheit’
(which could be rendered as ‘reliance’) (Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 413–414).
74
Ibid., 419–420. See also Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 147.
75
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 417–418.
76
Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 143 (emphasis in the original). However, Dalferth’s rule is
not more than a rule of thumb. The contributions to Trust and Organisations: Confidence
across Borders, ed. Marta Reuter, Filip Wijgström and Bengt Kristensson Uggla (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), demonstrate that trust is vital for persons and institutions. See
esp. Bengt Kristensson Uggla, ‘The Grammar of Trust as Ethical Challenge,’ in ibid.,
165–179, who, analyzing cases of both the placement and the misplacement of trust, argues
that personal and institutional trust have to be connected and disconnected simultaneously.
Rules like Dalferth’s, then, are in danger of failing if applied to concrete cases.
c ommunity creates a climate of distrust, it will support distrust. Hence, the

climate in the community might invigorate or inhibit trust.77 Eventually,
however, Dalferth argues that trust is counter-factual: trust is ‘truly (wah-
rhaft)’ trust when a truster trusts in a trustee who is not trustworthy.78
Dalferth comes close to the circle of trust so crucial to James and to
Troeltsch’s reception of James. The presumption of trust creates the rela-
tion of trust and the relation of trust creates the presumption of trust.
For Dalferth, trust is strictly speaking not a relation, but a mode of a rela-
tion: ‘trust’ points out how relations are performed—in a mistrusting, a
distrusting or a trusting manner. When I nonetheless refer to trust as a
relation, my reference does not point to a purification of trust into a rela-
tion of trust which is nothing but a relation of trust. Rather, my reference
points to the fact that trust is established and experienced ‘in-between’
subjects rather than ‘in’ subjects—which is to say, within relations.79 In his
critique of the interiorization and the individualization of trust, Dalferth
makes a similar case. For him, too, the responsive relationality of trust is
embedded in the practice of interpersonal relations. However, whereas I
have pointed to the structural similarities between trust in the finite other
and trust in the infinite other, Dalferth constructs a categorical contra-
distinction between the ‘grammar of trust’ and the ‘grammar of trust in
God.’80
According to Dalferth, these grammars are incommensurable. He sets
out by separating total (or unconditional) trust from non-total (or condi-
tional) trust81: the one is appropriate in relation to the infinite other; the
other is appropriate in relation to the finite other.82 Thus, he defines trust
in the finite as antithesis of trust in the infinite other.83 Dalferth asserts
that while trust in the finite other is grammatically structured as ‘X trusts Y
with reference to Z,’ trust in the infinite other is grammatically structured
77
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 418.
78
Ibid.
79
I insist on the relationality of trust in order to emphasize that trust has to do with the
other. As Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, demonstrates, even when one trusts oneself (self-
confidence), one trusts another.
80
Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 135 (emphasis in the original). See also Dalferth,
Leidenschaften, 280–281n. 11, 316–320.
81
The terminology Dalferth uses to pinpoint the difference between total and non-total
trust is diverse. See Dalfeth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 148–149. In German, he also uses ‘einge-
schränkt (limited)’ and ‘uneingeschränkt (unlimited).’ See Dalferth, Leidenschaften, 320.
82
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 415.
83
Ibid., 421.
84 U. SCHMIEDEL
as ‘X trusts God,’ where X is primarily passive.84 In German, he depicts

the passivity of X with the sentence ‘Gott macht sich X vertraut’ which
could be rendered as ‘God makes X familiar with God.’ Dalferth’s core
concern is clear: God is the subject; therefore, he discusses trust as a ‘pas-
sion (Leidenschaft)’ characterized by ‘radical passivity.’85
The grammatical distinction between subject and object is easily traced
back to classical and contemporary readings of Martin Luther’s theology
which stress that Luther interpreted faith as the activity of God in con-
trast to the activity of God’s creature.86 Like James, Dalferth builds on
Luther. But unlike James, Dalferth argues that trust in God is grounded in
‘Glauben’: the theological terminology of ‘belief (Glauben)’ and ‘unbelief
(Unglauben)’ is vital to decide whether trust is theologically appropriate
or inappropriate,87 because a person’s belief or unbelief decides whether
she trusts in ‘Gott’ or ‘Abgott’—which is to say, in God or in a false
God.88 Theologically, fides quae is what determines and decides about fides
qua.89 There is no neutral position between belief and unbelief; there is no
non-belief. Trust in God is correct when it is rooted in belief rather than
un-belief.
84
Ibid.
85
See Dalferth, Leidenschaften, 5. In German, Dalferth refers to trust in God as ‘einstel-
liges Prädikat’ which is to say that, grammatically, the subject of the creature’s trust in God
is not the creature but the creator (ibid., 319). Hence, trust in God is not interpreted as a
relation between creature and creator; it is what the creator does to and through the
creature.
86
Dalferth ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 422–423. However, Mary Gaebler, The Courage of
Faith: Martin Luther on the Theonomous Self (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), has convincingly
challenged such readings.
87
For this terminology, see Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘Ist Glauben menschlich?,’ Denkströme:
Journal der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 8 (2012), 185–186. See also Ingolf
U. Dalferth, Radikale Theologie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010), where Dalferth
develops the theological terminology of ‘Glaube’ and ‘Unglaube’ in conversation with
Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann. I am uneasy with Dalferth’s assumption that the
binary distinction of ‘belief’ and ‘unbelief’ is at the center of theology. While (following the
Jamesian circle of trust) I agree with him that non-belief is not an option in relation to
God—either one does or one does not ‘jump’—it seems to me that the binary of ‘belief’ and
‘unbelief’ is too static and too strict to cope with the complexities of intra- and inter-religious
practice, because, within Christian theology, it implies a classification of non-Christian believ-
ers as ‘unbelievers’ rather than ‘believers.’
88
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 421–423, where he draws on Luther’s reading of the
First Commandment in the ‘The Large Catechism (1529),’ in The Book of Concord, 365–368.
89
Dalferth, ‘Vertauen und Hoffen,’ 421–423.
Drawing on Luther, Dalferth concludes from the (grammatical) shift in

the agency of trust that trust in the finite other ought to be conditional,
while trust in the infinite other ought to be unconditional.90 Precisely
because the creator is the creator, trusting the creator means trusting
totally; precisely because the creature is the creature, trusting the creature
means trusting non-totally. The issue behind the (Lutheran) distinction
of unconditional trust in the creator and conditional trust in the creature
which James took up in his interpretation of trust (as examined in Chap. 1)
is the trustworthiness of the trustee: the creator is deemed absolutely trust-
worthy, while the creature is not deemed absolutely trustworthy. Hence,
if the domain of action or interaction which the truster entrusts to the
trustee is total, then the trustee is treated as God.
As Luther argued in his exposition of the first commandment, ‘That
to which your heart … entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.’91 Thus, to
render total trust to the creature and not to render total trust to the creator
is idolatrous: it puts the creature in the place of the creator and the creator
in the place of the creature. The under- or overtones of a competition
between the ‘creating trustee’ and the ‘created trustee’ for the truster’s
trust are not discussed by Dalferth.92 But he asserts that any ‘totalization
(Totalisierung)’ of conditional trust to unconditional trust—which is to
say, any shift from trust in the finite other to trust in the infinite other—
falls for an ‘anthropomorphic fallacy.’93 For Dalferth, then, the account of
structural similarities between the experience of the finite other’s transcen-
dence and the experience of the infinite other’s transcendence (the close
connection which I have advocated above) means destroying the differ-
ence between creator and creature.
90
For Luther’s concept of trust, see Schäufele, ‘Fiducia bei Martin Luther,’ 163–181, who
argues that the background for Luther’s distinction is a (tacit) theology of creation: creation
provides the creature with the ‘experience’ of God’s trustworthiness (ibid., 176). My account
of the structural similarities between the experiences of finite and infinite others follows a
similar thrust.
91
See Luther, ‘The Large Catechism,’ 365.
92
For a discussion of the issue of competition, see Hartmann, Die Praxis des Vertrauens,
359–363. However, Claudia Welz clarified convincingly that Luther’s concept of trust does
not necessarily presuppose the competition between creator and creature. Rather, for Luther,
trust in God is the key to trust in creatures; it allows for the orientation and ordering of inter-
human relations. Claudia Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010),
110–111.
93
Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 426 (my emphasis).
86 U. SCHMIEDEL
However, if trust is conceived of as (the mode of) a relation ‘in-

between’ rather than ‘in’ subjects, it cannot be characterized with the
categories of activity (or subjectivity) and passivity (or objectivity).94
Any relation requires the activity and the passivity of both parties.95 Like
Dalferth, I am arguing that if God’s creature was the only subject in the
relation between creator and creature, God would become the creature’s
projection. The creature would trust in the creature—via the detour of
God. Unlike Dalferth, however, I am also arguing that if God was the only
subject in the relation between creator and creature, the creature would
become God’s projection. God would trust in God—via the detour of
the creature. Dalferth counters a (Jamesian) non-theological reductionism
through a (non-Jamesian) theological reductionism. But, as my explora-
tion of Troeltsch’s critique of these reductionisms in Chap. 2 has empha-
sized, reductionism remains reductionism, regardless of whether trust is
reduced non-theologically to the creature or theologically to the creator.
In both reductions, the other is neutralized: the self trusts the self. For
trust to occur, however, both parties must participate; both parties must
be trusted and trusting. Hence, either form of reductionism undermines
the relationality of trust. Accordingly, it is imperative to stress the (subjec-
tifying) activity and the (objectifying) passivity of creator and creature in
the relation of trust between them.96
Similarly, the characterization of religious trust in the infinite other as
‘total’ and the characterization of non-religious trust in the finite other
as ‘non-total’ is problematic. If one acknowledges the otherness of both
finite and infinite others, non-religious trust and religious trust converge,
because both have to do with transcendence: in both cases, the trustee tran-
scends and transforms the truster.97 Accordingly, the distinction between
trust in the finite other and trust in the infinite other is misconceived if it
is constructed as a categorical contradistinction. Experientially, the tran-
scendence of trust in the finite other might be radicalized by the trusting
acceptance of the loss of control, as much as the transcendence of trust in
94
Cornelia Richter, ‘Melanchthons Fiducia: Gegen die Selbstmächtigkeit des Menschen,’
in Gottvertrauen, 209–242, argues that ‘trust might be understood as the moment in which
activity and passivity … merge into each other (ineinander fallen)’ (ibid., 231).
95
See the critique of Dalferth by Claudia Welz, ‘Vertrauen und/oder Gewissheit,’ in
Gottvertrauen, 371n. 95. See also Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 88–97.
96
Welz, ‘Vertrauen und/oder Gewissheit,’ 358, elaborates on the notion of God believing
in God through God’s creature (albeit without reference to Dalferth).
97
See the critique of Dalferth by Richter, ‘Melanchthons fiducia,’ 232n. 51.
the infinite other might be routinized by the distrusting non-acceptance

of the loss of control. The account of structural similarities between trust
in the finite other and trust in the infinite other does not undermine the
difference between creator and creation. Yet in order to make a difference,
this difference is to be registered by the creature: it is to be experienced.
Overall, then, I do not fall for an ‘anthropomorphic fallacy’ when I
argue for structural similarities between trust in the finite other and trust
in the infinite other. If trust is embedded in practices (as Dalferth argues)
then these practices must be marked by openness to the other’s otherness.
Dalferth assumes that trust in the finite other is oriented toward the fac-
tual because the creature conforms to one’s expectations (excluding the
possibility of surprise), while trust in the infinite other is oriented toward
the counter-factual because the creator does not conform to one’s expec-
tations (including the possibility of surprise); hence, this trust does and
that trust does not rest on one’s expectations.98 Yet, due to the distinction
between factual and counter-factual orientations of trust, Dalferth misses
that both others might be (ab)used as warrants for the factual or the
counter-factual. The history of Christianity is rife with concepts of God
as a guarantor of the status quo. In contrast to Dalferth, I have argued
that ‘trust’ encapsulates an experiential connection between the relation
to the finite other and the relation to the infinite other. Alterity cannot be
total(ized) in either of these cases99; rather, the otherness of the other is
relational: the other is always already one’s other: actual and acute, never
abstract. Only in a relation of trust where the self is open to the otherness
of the other can the transformative transcendence of the other be regis-
tered and recognized. Hence, transformation is experienced through trust
in both potential others, the finite one and the infinite one. I can relate to
transformation in a trust which enables the other to surprise me.
Trust and Togetherness
As mentioned above, I am interpreting transcendence in functional
rather than substantial terms: the transcendent is that which trans-
forms. Dalferth, however, claims to counter such a functionalization of
transcendence. In ‘The Idea of Transcendence,’ he offers a concise and
98
Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘Grundvertrauen: Problemdimensionen eines sozialen Konstrukts,’
in Grundvertrauen, 205.
99
See again Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters.
88 U. SCHMIEDEL
comprehensive account of the thinking of transcendence in philosophy

and theology past and present.100 He is interested in what he calls ‘The
Logic of Transcendence’101 which draws a categorical contradistinction
between theological and non-theological transcendence. Pointing out
how his account of transcendence mirrors his account of trust, I will argue
that—experientially—Dalferth’s contradistinction between theological
and non-theological transcendence collapses.
At the center of Dalferth’s logic of transcendence is the distinction
between immanence and transcendence: ‘transcendence is the reverse of
immanence’ and ‘immanence is the reverse of transcendence.’102 Crucially,
Dalferth argues that the distinction between immanence and transcen-
dence is drawn in immanence.103 To escape the sphere of the immanent,
he adds the contrast between absolute ‘Immanence’ (with capital ‘I’)
and absolute ‘Transcendence’ (with capital ‘T’) to the contrast between
relative ‘immanence’ and relative ‘transcendence’: the immanence/tran-
scendence distinction refers to immanence and transcendence within the
re-entry into Immanence, whereas the Immanence/Transcendence dis-
tinction refers to Immanence and Transcendence without the re-entry into
Immanence.104
Dalferth’s contrast is decisive for the distinction he draws between a theo-
logical and a non-theological concept of self-transcendence.105 The theo-
logical concept conveys the infinite other’s movement of self-transcendence
(thus, the self-transcendence of the creator’s Transcendence): the creator
transcends the creator. The non-theological concept conveys the finite oth-
er’s movement of self-transcendence (thus, the self-transcendence of the
creature’s Immanence): the creature transcends the creature.106 With the
help of this technical terminology, Dalferth explains that both movements
of self-transcendence are decidedly different because of their allocations of
agency. The non-theological concept of self-transcendence signifies the activ-
ity of the human self in which the self opens herself up for Transcendence.107
100
Ingolf U. Dalferth, ‘The Idea of Transcendence,’ in The Axial Age and Its Consequences,
146–188.
101
Dalferth, ‘The Idea of Transcendence,’ 153–160.
102
Ibid., 153.
103
Ibid., 154.
104
Ibid., 155.
105
Ibid. 149–150, 163–165.
106
Ibid., 160–165.
107
Ibid., 166.
Ultimately, this movement is unsuccessful since Immanence is by defini-

tion confined to Immanence. The theological concept of self-transcen-
dence, however, signifies the passivity of the human self in which the self is
opened up for Transcendence. Ultimately, this movement is successful since
Transcendence is by definition not confined to Immanence.108
Dalferth’s categorical contradistinction between types of transcendence,
therefore, mirrors the categorical contradistinction he has drawn between
types of trust. Described differently, theological self-transcendence is suc-
cessfully attempted by the infinite other (the creator’s self-transcendence
is not confined), whereas non-theological self-transcendence is unsuccess-
fully attempted by the finite other (the creature’s self-transcendence is
confined). Similarly, trust in God is the work of the creator and not the
work of the creature. Obviously, Dalferth’s distinction between theologi-
cal self-transcendence and non-theological self-transcendence reproduces
Karl Barth’s famous–infamous distinction between ‘revelation’ and ‘reli-
gion’ according to which revelation is attributed to the activity of God
while religion is attributed to the activity of God’s creature.109
Although Dalferth’s account of transcendence is carefully crafted, he
neglects the experience of transcendence. The contradistinction between
Immanence and Transcendence is a distinction drawn before, behind
or beyond experience. Such a distinction catapults the one who draws
it from physics to metaphysics, so to speak.110 Dalferth’s ‘catapult-
contradistinction’ between Immanence and Transcendence runs the
risk of isolating theological from non-theological thinking about tran-
scendence. For Dalferth, the theologian’s access trumps the non-theo-
logian’s access to transcendence. But the contradistinction between his
non-theological (experiential) concept of transcendence and his theologi-
cal (non-experiential) concept of Transcendence is inadequate.111 When
108
Ibid.
109
See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1963), vol. I/2, §17.
110
For the issue of metaphysics, see the contributions to Gott denken – ohne Metaphysik: Zu
einer aktuellen Kontroverse in Theologie und Philosophie, ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Andreas
Hunziker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).
111
For Dalferth’s concept, the scheme of orientation is always already in place:
‘Transcendence is … human self-transcending into the divine self-transcending … enabled by
the divine self-transcending toward human persons. Understood in this sense, “transcen-
dence” … is an interpretative theological category’ (Dalferth, ‘The Idea of Transcendence,’
178). Interpretative theological categories ‘are used to signify a way in which phenomena of
this life are reinterpreted in the light of a particular … scheme of orientation’ (ibid.).
90 U. SCHMIEDEL
Dalferth describes the in-breaking of Transcendence,112 his description

of the experience offers no device to distinguish between an in-break-
ing infinite ‘Transcendence’ and an in-breaking finite ‘transcendence.’ In
the picture painted by Dalferth, the one who experiences the break-in
must always already know who or what breaks in. As Joas argues, self-
transcendence—in Dalferth’s technical terminology, non-theological self-
transcendence of the creature rather than theological self-transcendence
of the creator—is experienced as a being-pulled rather than as a pulling.
How, then, does the person who experiences transcendence ascertain by
whom or what she is being pulled?
The problem with Dalferth’s concept of transcendence is not that the
person who experiences transcendence cannot know clearly whether she
is transformed by the finite or the infinite other. Rather, the problem is
that his categorical contradistinction between theological transcendence
and non-theological transcendence presupposes that she could or that
she should know. Hence, if experience is taken as a point of departure,
Dalferth’s contradistinction between transcendence and Transcendence
appears to be arbitrary.
In Unbelievable, Graham Ward depicts transcendence differently.113
Ward’s concept of transcendence is worth considering here, because he
acknowledges the distinction between absolute and non-absolute tran-
scendence but nonetheless arrives at a conclusion which casts doubt on
Dalferth’s interpretation. Ward draws on the phenomenology of Maurice
Merleau-Ponty to assess transcendence within immanence.114 Consider
the example of the six sides of a cube: ‘We can only see two or three. And
yet we know that a cube, to be a cube, has to have six equal sides. In seeing
the cube, then, we “project” the missing sides in making sense of what we
see. We see as.’115 In order to ‘see as,’ one projects what one cannot see.
Following Merleau-Ponty, Ward calls such seeing-as ‘perceptual faith.’116
But while Merleau-Ponty draws a distinction between non-absolute
112
Ibid., 167–172.
113
Ward, Unbelievable, 195–199, 214–221.
114
See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968). For a theological account of Merleau-
Ponty’s distinction between immanence and transcendence, see Andreas Nordlander, ‘The
Wonder of Immanence: Merleau-Ponty and the Problem of Creation,’ Modern Theology
29/2 (2013), 104–123.
115
Ward, Unbelievable, 195.
116
Ibid., 196.
(projected) transcendence and absolute (non-projected) transcendence

close to the distinction maintained by Dalferth, Ward exposes such dis-
tinctions as epistemologically arbitrary. Pointing to mystical experiences,
he asks who would be able to decide whether such experiences gesture
toward absolute or non-absolute transcendence.117 Who can draw the
line between these experiences of transcendence? For Ward, transcendent
invisibility ‘leaks from’ immanent visibility; thus, a construal of a non-
absolute transcendent ‘cannot be divorced from … a construal of an abso-
lute transcendent.’118
Turning to theology, Ward points to the alternative between the subject
and the object of faith. Faith could be described as ‘a self-conscious accep-
tance of believing: a belief in the fundamental disposition to believe.’119
Here, the creature is primarily the active subject (and thus the creator
is only secondarily active). However, faith could also be described as ‘a
response to an invisible that operates always within the visible … and
moves us then beyond.’120 Here, the creator is primarily the active subject
(and thus the creature is only secondarily active). When Ward concludes
that ‘no choice is necessary,’ he comes close to the theological trajectory
which I have traced from classical to contemporary accounts of religious
and non-religious experience.121 For Ward, transcendence can be freed
neither from the activity (and indeed passivity) of the creature nor from
the activity (and indeed passivity) of the creator. On the contrary, Ward
lists ‘requirements for transcendence’ which point to the relation between
creature and creator.122
Transcendence, Ward suggests, is both other and outside of the
self. The ‘exteriority’ of the object—be it personal or impersonal—has
to be registered and recognized by the subject in order to experience
117
Ibid., 197.
118
Ibid.
119
Ibid., 200.
120
Ibid.
121
Ibid. However, Ward is suspicious of this theological trajectory. Criticizing Paul Tillich’s
concept of experience, he argues that there is no generic experience of religion. Because of
the productive power of imagination, expression changes experience as much as experience
changes expression; hence, the experience of religion is the experience of a concrete religion
(ibid., 220). Although I cannot engage Ward’s reading of Tillich’s theology here, it seems to
me that he is more ‘Tillichian’ than he admits when he grounds ‘belief’ in the biological
make-up of humanity.
122
Ibid., 214.
92 U. SCHMIEDEL
transcendence.123 Already the registration of the other cannot be captured

with the concept of passivity, because it includes the activity of the subject
who registers the object: activities of projection which make the object
‘meaningful to me.’124 Transcendence thus requires a relation between the
subject of the experience of transcendence and the object of the experi-
ence of transcendence: registering transcendence requires relationality.
Such relationality, in turn, requires that one has what Ward calls ‘con-
sciousness’ and ‘consciousness of the contents of one’s consciousness.’125
The consciousness of consciousness is necessary to recognize the ‘distance
and difference that characterises transcendence.’126 This difference between
‘consciousness’ and ‘consciousness of the contents of one’s consciousness’
confirms my assessment of the experience of transcendence: transcendence
requires the difference between one’s articulation of the event of transcen-
dence (akin to Ward’s ‘consciousness’) and one’s interpretation of one’s
articulation of the event of transcendence (akin to Ward’s ‘consciousness
of the contents of one’s consciousness’). The difference between articula-
tion and interpretation enables a subject to register how the other tran-
scends the way she thinks and talks about the other. Accordingly, Ward
also rules out absolute and abstract concepts of alterity: ‘the otherness of
the other … is not an incommensurate otherness … If that was the case
there could be no shared understanding. The other would be incompre-
hensible to me.’127
Finally, Ward points to the subject’s ‘freedom’ as a ‘characteristic and
consequence of transcendence.’128 ‘Transcendence constitutes the subject
in his or her freedom … because it expands consciousness by opening up
the world before us.’129 Freedom, according to Ward, is exercised as ‘an
invitation to play; an invitation for imaginative acts in which believing
is both engaged and expressive.’130 Described differently, the dissonance
between articulation and interpretation which characterizes the experi-
ence of transcendence causes psychological and physiological reactions;
it might make the subject literally shiver or sweat.131 But when a subject
registers such difference in cognitive or non-cognitive modes, her imagi-
123
Ibid.
124
Ibid., 215.
125
Ibid.
126
Ibid.
127
Ibid., 216.
128
Ibid.
129
Ibid.
130
Ibid.
131
Ibid., 95.
nation is triggered.132 Through imagination, the subject engages with

transcendence which is why, as Troeltsch already argued, imagination is
indispensable for religion. Imagination is vital for the drive for difference.
Equipped with these requirements for transcendence, Ward returns
to the distinction of absolute and non-absolute transcendence. He con-
cludes that his account of transcendence ‘does not demonstrate … the
existence of God,’ but: ‘such a notion cannot be ruled out a priori.’133
Evidently, Ward’s caution against reductionism targets non-theological
reductionism (which reduces the experience of transcendence to the natu-
ral) rather than theological reductionism (which reduces the experience
of transcendence to the supernatural). Nonetheless, both non-theological
and theological reductionists fail to answer why the experience of self-
transcendence should ‘lead to a cul-de-sac’? ‘Religious believing points
beyond that cul-de-sac.’134 Accordingly, if the experience of transcendence
is taken seriously, then drawing a distinction between infinite and absolute
Transcendence, on the one hand, and finite and non-absolute transcen-
dence, on the other, is arbitrary. Experientially, one cannot draw a line
between these ‘transcendences.’
Dalferth acknowledges that his distinction between absolute and non-
absolute transcendence is not experiential. It is a distinction, he argues,
which passes a verdict about experience.135 Dalferth’s verdict is that trust
in the finite other ought not to be total (because it can, by definition, be
disappointed), while trust in the infinite other ought to be total (because
it can, by definition, not be disappointed).136 Literally, he states that ‘trust
in God cannot be disappointed.’137 If trust in God could be disappointed,
Dalferth adds, the disappointment would be due to the truster rather than
the trustee, the creature rather than the creator.138 This statement shows
that ‘trust in God’ and ‘trust’ are constructed as opposites. While ‘trust’
is ‘truly’ trust when the trustee is not trustworthy; ‘trust in God’ is ‘truly’
trust in God when the trustee is trustworthy.
I am uneasy with Dalferth’s distinction between trustworthy creator
and non-trustworthy creature. Christianity vouches for the trustworthi-
ness of God. Yet, Christianity also acknowledges experiences of godforsak-
132
Ibid.
133
Ibid., 216.
134
Ibid., 217.
135
Dalferth, ‘The Idea of Transcendence,’ 180–181.
136
Dalferth, ‘Glauben und Hoffen,’ 428–431; see also Dalferth, ‘Grundvertrauen,’ 194.
137
Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 148 (emphasis in the original).
138
Ibid.
94 U. SCHMIEDEL
enness.139 Jesus, at the Cross, ‘at about three in the afternoon,’ cried ‘My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34, Matthew 27:46).
Jesus’s prayer is the prayer of someone whose trust in God has been disap-
pointed. If one continues reading the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, one
discovers that God’s trustworthiness may have been played out precisely
and paradoxically in the godforsakenness of the cross.140 However, if the-
ology escapes or evades experiences of godforsakenness through absolute
and abstract statements like ‘trust in God cannot be disappointed,’ it loses
touch with the ways in which God has been experienced in the past and
in the present.
God relates to God’s creatures within concrete contexts. In Ich glaube
an Gott und so weiter …, a feminist reading or rather a feminist rereading
of the Apostles’ Creed, Ina Praetorius elegantly expresses how theology
loses touch with experience.141 She describes how her aunt gave the signi-
fier ‘God’ to her. ‘Her gift turned out to be life-leading.’142 But the theo-
logians who taught Pretorius were not interested in the life-leading gift:
The professors of theology did not ask me, who had given the signpost
signifier ‘God’ to me. Like the pastor who confirmed me they spoke about
GOD as if HE existed without my aunt, somewhere in a higher sphere of set
and sempiternal truth. If I had asked a theologian, what he thought of my
aunt, he surely would have been startled.143
The example of Praetorius’s aunt is instructive because it demonstrates

two problems in Dalferth’s concept of trust: on the one hand, the creator
is interpreted to be trustworthy by definition (which contradicts everyday
experience); on the other hand, the creature is interpreted to be untrust-
worthy by definition (which also contradicts everyday experience). What
139
See Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 14–32. See also Claudia Welz, ‘Trust and Lament:
Faith in the Face of Godforsakenness,’ in Evoking Lament: A Theological Discussion, ed. Eva
Harasta and Brian Brock (London: T&T Clark, 2009). 118–135.
140
See Konrad Schmid, ‘Was heißt Vertrauen? Biblische Erkundungen,’ in Gottvertrauen,
31–47, who points to the story of Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac to tackle the
issue of God’s non/trustworthiness in critical conversation with Dalferth. For the fascinating
and flabbergasting conclusions which might be drawn from this story for the concept of
trust, see Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 158–177.
141
Ina Praetorius, Ich glaube an Gott und so weiter…: Eine Auslegung des
Glaubensbekenntnisses (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2011).
142
Ibid., 13.
143
Ibid., 13–14.
Praetorius captures in her autobiographical account, namely that one’s

relation to the creator cannot be divorced from one’s relation to the crea-
ture, has been condensed conceptually in Mayra Rivera’s postcolonial the-
ology of God, The Touch of Transcendence. Rivera details and discusses a
model of ‘relational transcendence,’ pointing to the correlation of the dif-
ference between creator and creature with the difference between creature
and creature.144 Against Karl Barth’s hypostatization of transcendence,
according to which the creator touches the creation through revelation ‘as
a tangent touches a circle, that is, without touching it,’145 she re-conceives
transcendence as ‘a verb’—a re-conception which comes close to my move
from substantial transcendence to functional transcendence.146 Crucially,
Rivera marshals her verbalization of transcendence as resistance against any
claim to have grasped the other. She explains that claiming to have under-
stood the otherness of the creator implies claiming to have understood
the otherness of the creature—correlative claims with their catastrophic
consequence of colonialism in the past and in the present.147 In order to
counter these consequences, she suggests understanding transcendence as
‘inexhaustible’ or ‘irreducible’ rather than ‘absolute,’ thus allowing for a
relation to the other which does not claim to know how transcendent her
transcendence is.148 She arrives at the following axiom:
Transcendence designates a relation with a reality irreducibly different from

my own reality, without this difference destroying the relation and without
the relation destroying this difference … Our aim to open ourselves to tran-
scendence in the face of the Other leads us to give special attention to our
relationships with those who are marginalized in our communities … not
because we define transcendence as sociopolitical exclusion, but because we
recognize exclusion as an effect of having ignored the transcendence of the
Other.149
Elaborating on philosophies and phenomenologies of touch, Rivera con-

cludes that when one is touched by the other creature one is touched
144
Mayra Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), x (emphasis in the original).
145
Ibid., 5, with reference to Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn
C. Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 30.
146
Rivera, Touch, 7.
147
Ibid., 10–11.
148
Ibid., 73, 81.
149
Ibid., 82 (emphasis in the original).
96 U. SCHMIEDEL
by God; and when one is touched by God, one is touched by the other
creature.150 The touch of transcendence requires critical and self-critical
attention to the concrete circumstances in which the other is engaged or
not engaged.
Ward affirms these interrelations, explaining that relationality is at the
core of religion.151 He identifies ‘eccentricity,’ ‘the going out of oneself’
which is evoked and entailed by relationality, as the ‘origin’ of belief.152
Taking inspiration from his repeated reference to ‘trust’ and ‘entrustment,’
I am arguing that religion originates in the practices of trust because prac-
tices of trust are practices in which the subject goes out of herself in order
to open herself to the other.153 Since the trustworthiness of the other can-
not be established prior to the trust in the other—recall James’s ‘jump’
from Chap. 1—trust requires that I entrust myself to the other. There is
no way to bypass the jump, neither in the relation to the finite other nor in
the relation to the infinite other. A type of togetherness in which the jump
is encouraged is what I call togetherness of trust. In the togetherness of
trust the self jumps toward both the finite and the infinite other, trusting
that the other meets her jump. This jump toward the other is not a one-
off occurrence. Rather, in the togetherness of trust, one jumps again and
again in order to let the other surprise oneself.
To summarize, I have substantiated my concept of trust. ‘Trust’
encapsulates an experiential connection between the relation to the finite
other and the relation to the infinite other. In critical conversation with
Dalferth’s concepts of trust and transcendence, I have explained how trust
interrelates the relation to the finite other with the relation to the infinite
other. How can I learn how to trust the infinite other? I can learn it by
trusting finite others, letting go of myself. And how can I learn how to
trust finite others? I can learn it by trusting the infinite other, letting go of
150
Ibid., 127–140.
151
Ward, Unbelievable, 54–55, 58–59.
152
Ibid., 54. Ward identifies ‘the going out of oneself’ as the origin of conscious as opposed
to unconscious belief. The distinction is indispensable for his analysis which traces belief in
the biological make-up of humanity. Ward alludes to ‘trust’ and ‘trusting’ in ibid., 54–55:
‘Belief … concerns that which we can come to trust … Belief is a relational category’ (ibid.,
55).
153
See the contributions by Arne Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ and Claudia Welz,
‘Trust as Basic Openness and Self-Transcendence,’ in Trust, Sociality and Selfhood, 13–30
and 45–64. See also, Arne Grøn, ‘Grenzen des Vertrauens: Kritische Bemerkungen zur Rede
von Grundvertrauen,’ in Grundvertrauen, 145–158, where Grøn also interprets the going
out of oneself as ‘eccentricity (Exzentrizität)’. See also Chap. 7 of my study.
myself. Relationality is at the core of trust which is why trust in the finite
other might reinforce trust in the infinite other and trust in the infinite
other might reinforce trust in the finite other.154
In conclusion, I defined trust as a relation to the other which is charac-
terized by openness to the other’s otherness. By comparing and combining
sociological and theological accounts of the experience of transcendence, I
have clarified how the concept of transcendence implies the destabilization
of the distinction between religious experience and non-religious experi-
ence: transcendence might be experienced whenever the other is encoun-
tered. I have substantiated my account of the hermeneutical experience of
transcendence by discussing Dalferth’s depiction of trust. Through a cri-
tique of his categorical contradistinction between the ‘grammar of trust’
and the ‘grammar of trust in God,’ I have explained how the otherness of
the other transforms me when I encounter the other in a trusting rather
than a distrusting way—regardless of whether the other is finite or infi-
nite. Thus, the concept of trust conveys the relation to the transformative
transcendence of the other. In a togetherness of trust, then, the relation to
the finite other might be experienced as an opening to the relation to the
infinite other and the relation to the infinite other might be experienced
as an opening to the relation to the finite other.
Troeltsch assesses these interrelated relations as the ‘double character
(Doppelcharakter)’ of Christianity155: in Christian communities, then, the
relation to the finite other and the relation to the infinite other connect
in Jesus Christ.156 For Troeltsch, Christianity implies a concern for the
infinite other and a concern for the finite other; it destabilizes the categor-
ical distinction between what counts as religious and what counts as non-
religious. In Jesus’s words: ‘[W]hatever you did to one of the least …, you
did for me’ and ‘whatever you did not do for one of the least …, you did
not do for me’ (Matthew 25:40, 45). The (or a) point of Jesus’s parable
154
For the interrelation of the relation to the finite other and the relation to the infinite
other, see also Werner G. Jeanrond, Call and Response: The Challenge of Christian Life (New
York: Continuum, 1995), 39–41.
155
ST, vol. 1, 57, translation altered. Olive Wyon’s translation of Doppelcharakter with
‘double aspect’ is deceptive because Troeltsch argues that the interrelated relations to the
finite and the infinite other are the characteristic (not only aspects of the characteristic) of
Christianity. See SL, 41. Since Wyon’s translation is often inaccurate, I refer to the German
original of The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches throughout my study.
156
Christentum, for Troeltsch, means ‘Christianity’ rather than ‘Christendom.’ Troeltsch’s
concept of Christianity will be discussed in Chaps. 4 and 9.
98 U. SCHMIEDEL
is to surprise by connecting without collapsing the relation to the finite

other with the relation to the infinite other. Christian community, then,
could be conceived of as togetherness of trust—a way of being together
where the relations to the finite other and the relations to the infinite
other are connected through Jesus Christ.
To recall what I asked at the outset of my study: Where does ecclesiol-
ogy start? The elasticization of ecclesiology starts by redefining its starting
point. The concept of ‘trust,’ I have argued through Chaps. 1, 2 and 3,
allows for a concept of the experience of transcendence which is neither
solely personal nor solely communal, but both: trust is relational. The
togetherness of trust, in which relations to the finite other are interrelated
with relations to the infinite other, cuts across the double-bind in which
the controversy between liberalism and postliberalism has caught ecclesi-
ology. Arguably, togetherness is at the core of communities. But which
types of community can and which types of community cannot engender
the togetherness of trust?
PART II
Community
After the service, when people get together for coffee and tea, I learn more.
The church in which we celebrate is not owned by the community. The commu-
nity does not have their own church. Across the city, the church in which they
come together is known as an ‘open church,’ a charity center where people who
have nowhere else to go to can drop in. Volunteers are running a counter in
the narthex: no matter when one arrives, one will be offered a cup of coffee or
a cup of tea. The church, then, is ‘owned’ by the homeless who utilize the char-
ity center. For the Anglicans, the homeless are hosts and the hosts are homeless.
What I experienced when I entered the church is beginning to make sense to
me. I was greeted by a strange smell. The people who were rolling up blankets
were homeless. They had been sleeping in the pews. Aware that the service
would start soon, they were clearing the space for the celebration. A couple of
them would join in, while others would stay at the back, sipping coffee or tea
during the service.
According to the minister, the congregation aims to be a welcoming com-
munity. Since it was founded by foreigners, it has a sense of the significance
of welcoming foreigners. In addition to practical and pragmatic con-
cerns—again, the community needs to be welcoming in order to survive—
there is, according to the minister, the ‘conviction that a church could and
should be welcoming.’ It is palpable that this conviction is put into prac-
tice. As the minster pointedly puts it, ‘It is less demanding to be pious than
to be practical. But we have to be both pious and practical.’ However, the
proximity to the homeless, some of them drunk and some of them drugged,
100 PART II: COMMUNITY
creates difficulties. I am told that a child picked up a used syringe once

while playing in the pews during a service. Since then, the safety standards
have to be reviewed constantly and continuously. Nonetheless, the commu-
nity still appreciates the set-up. The minister admits that ‘there might have
been people who chose not to attend the services anymore,’ but, all in all, the
community found ways of coping: some try to get involved with the homeless
as much as they can, some try not to get involved with the homeless as much
as they can. During the service, the different attitudes are apparent in ‘the
peace’: now it makes sense to me that some people walked all the way to the
back of the church to say ‘Peace be with you.’
Despite the difficulties, there has never been a campaign for the commu-
nity to celebrate the services elsewhere. Instead, the community is a commu-
nity precisely and paradoxically where it opens its doors to others. Trust is
crucial. According to the minister, the members of the community are not
necessarily concerned with discussing theology, but ‘they are convinced they are
meant to be living out their lives in a kind way,’ trusting and entrusting the
other. The practice of trust, then, is the point of departure for the theological
as well as the sociological make-up of the community.
Trust, I argued in Part I, is vital for the experience of transformative
transcendence. But in order to connect the relation to the finite other with
the relation to the infinite other, togetherness must be structured in a way
that allows for trust. After my redefinition of the point of departure for
ecclesiology, the core concern of the elasticization of ecclesiology, then, is
not whether community engenders a togetherness of trust but which com-
munity engenders a togetherness of trust. What kind of community can
provoke practices of trust? What kind of community can preserve practices
of trust? And what kind community is open(ed) to the otherness of the
other?
The following three chapters revolve around these questions. In order
to answer them, I will combine theological and sociological approaches
to the construction of community. However, any such combination is a
minefield as it runs the risk of reducing what is religious to what is non-
religious.1 In order to sweep the mines, I will argue that interdisciplinary
combinations of sociology and theology are not necessarily reductionist.2
1
For a detailed discussion, see the contributions to Im Dialog: Systematische Theologie und
Religionssoziologie, ed. Ansgar Kreutzer and Franz Gruber (Freiburg: Herder, 2014), 23–55.
2
See also Austin Harrington, ‘Social Theory and Theology,’ in Handbook of Contemporary
European Social Theory, ed. Gerard Delanty (London: Routledge, 2006), 37–47.
PART II: COMMUNITY 101
John Milbank’s archaeological account of the history of the coopera-

tion between theology and sociology excavates the anti-theological origins
of much sociology and the anti-sociological outcomes of much theology.3
He argues that sociologies are ‘anti-theologies in disguise.’4 Either one
assumes that reality is fundamentally religious (for Milbank, Christian)
or one assumes that reality is fundamentally anti-religious (for Milbank,
anti-Christian).5 There is no neutral assumption. Hence, the ‘queen of
the sciences’ is either theology or sociology: this queen promotes what is
Christian and that queen promotes what is anti-Christian.6 Thus, Milbank
arrives at a clear conclusion: theology must rule sociology. Hans Joas,
however, is uneasy with Milbank’s conclusion.7 Joas’s review of Milbank’s
influential interpretation of the relation between theology and sociology is
instructive here because Joas concentrates on the concept of experience.8
Joas argues that Milbank mistakes the origin of the application of a
concept for the outcome of the application of a concept. For Milbank, the
origin of the introduction of ‘experience’ into theology is liberal; thus, the
outcome of the introduction of ‘experience’ into theology is liberal. Once
theology is infected with liberalism, it utilizes the concept of experience
to police religion, reducing it from the political to the private.9 Milbank,
then, clearly chooses sides in the controversy between liberal and postlib-
eral theologies. Yet for Joas, the identification of origin and outcome on
which Milbank’s choice is based misses the redefinitions of ‘experience’
which were discussed after William James.10
My analysis of Ernst Troeltsch’s reception of James’s experientialism is
a case in point. Troeltsch cuts across the alternative between a Jamesian
liberalism which concentrates on the personal and a non-Jamesian postlib-
eralism which concentrates on the communal, depicting the experience of
transcendence as embodied in personalities and embedded in communities.
3
See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory.
4
Ibid., 3.
5
Ibid., xi–xxxii.
6
Ibid., 382.
7
Hans Joas, ‘Sociology and the Sacred: A Response to John Milbank,’ Ethical Perspectives
7 (2004), 233–243. See also Mark D. Chapman, ‘On Sociological Theology,’ Journal for the
History of Modern Theology 15/1 (2008), 3–15.
8
For the impact of Milbank’s archaeological account, see the articles in New Blackfriars 73
(1992).
9
Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 384–385.
10
Joas, ‘Sociology,’ 237.
102 PART II: COMMUNITY
Although he concentrates on the concept of experience, then, religion

is neither a private nor a privatized matter for Troeltsch.11 Considering
cases like Troeltsch’s, it is not as evident as Milbank assumes that the
origins of sociology determine the outcome of sociology. Nonetheless, he
accuses present sociologists for the failures of past sociologists. The reason
why Milbank’s archaeological account was criticized in many sociological
accounts while it was celebrated in many theological accounts might be
that he reduces sociology to its past. He attacks past phantoms instead
of present players, thus inadvertently ‘increasing the intellectual isolation
from which Milbank set out to release theology.’12
Graham Ward shifts from the archaeology of sociology to the archi-
tecture of sociology, so to speak. He stresses that current sociology con-
strues religion as epiphenomenal rather than phenomenal: by definition,
then, the non-religious may impact the religious, but the religious may
not impact the non-religious.13 For Ward, ‘it is evident’ that sociologists
interpret religion negatively rather than positively, thus denying religion
the ‘intrinsic … import’ it deserves.14 He concludes: ‘Sociologists have
a vested interest in maintaining the secularization thesis. The founda-
tion of their discipline was the critique of religion at the forefront of the
Enlightenment agenda.’15 I am arguing that neither the archaeological nor
the architectural ‘evidence’ holds. If sociological scholarship is explored
empirically, a turn in the definition of religion becomes apparent in the
1980s—before Milbank’s account was published.16 This turn points to
what David Smilde calls a ‘strong program’ in the sociology of religion,
a program which conceives of religion as ‘independent variable’ rather
than ‘dependent variable.’17 Behind this statistics-speak lurks a critique of
11
See Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, esp. 161–186. Throughout,
Chapman characterizes Troeltsch’s theology as ‘public.’
12
Joas, ‘Sociology,’ 241.
13
Graham Ward, The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens (London:
SCM, 2009), 121–125.
14
Ibid., 124. Ward draws on James Sweeney, ‘Revising Secularization Theory,’ in The New
Visibility of Religion, ed. Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward (London: Continuum, 2008),
15–29.
15
Ward, Politics, 121.
16
See the empirical exploration by David Smilde and Matthew May, ‘The Emerging Strong
Program in the Sociology of Religion,’ SSRC Working Papers 2008, esp. the concise chart
which visualizes the findings (ibid., 5).
17
Ibid., 23–25.
PART II: COMMUNITY 103
Ward’s critique: if ‘religion’ is understood as independent of non-religious

factors, then it is seen as phenomenal (and thus as causing societal devel-
opments), if ‘religion’ is understood as dependent on non-religious fac-
tors, then it is seen as epiphenomenal (and thus as not causing societal
developments). Smilde’s empirical evidence for the turn to the ‘strong
program’ in the sociology of religion, rooted in the analysis of sociologi-
cal publications which have appeared in the last 30 years, speaks against
the archaeological and the architectural critiques of sociology.18 According
to Smilde, publications with positive socio-evaluative findings for religion
outrun publications with negative socio-evaluative findings for religion
in sociology today.19 Hence, whatever else sociologists assume about reli-
gion, they do not assume, pace Ward, that it is detrimental. The corollary
of the turn to the strong program is the rejection of the secularization
thesis. When both its proponents and its opponents argue that the secu-
larization thesis is ‘unfashionable’ among sociologists today, then it must
be asked who has a ‘vested interest’ in its maintenance.20 Thus, I suggest
that neither the archaeology of sociology nor the architecture of sociology
speak against its cooperation with theology.
My point of departure for the combination of theological and sociolog-
ical approaches is, again, Ernst Troeltsch. In the following three chapters,
I will explore Troeltsch’s tripartite typology of ecclesiasticism, sectarian-
ism and mysticism. I will argue that Troeltsch understands Christian com-
munity in a way which prohibits its closure against alterity. I will apply
Troeltsch’s typology to the ongoing debates in sociology and sociology
of religion. Following the thrust of Troeltsch’s The Social Teachings of the
Christian Churches, my exploration will result in a negative rather than a
positive lesson: I will propose not how to conceptualize community but
how not to conceptualize community.21 In order to provoke and preserve
the togetherness of trust, community ought not to be closed. But if the
lesson is turned from the negative to the positive, it makes a crucial contri-
bution to the elasticization of ecclesiology: in order to engender a togeth-
erness of trust, community is to be open(ed) to the other.
Ibid., 2.
18
Ibid., 13.
19
20
See Steve Bruce, Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011).
21
See SL.
CHAPTER 4
The Construction of Community
Ernst Troeltsch’s massive and monumental study, The Social Teachings of the
Christian Churches, published in 1912, surveys the history of Christianity
for its concept(s) of community. Troeltsch conceives of Christianity as
‘practice (Praxis).’1 His survey of the practice of Christianity seeks to
uncover possibilities and impossibilities for the ‘construction of com-
munity (Gemeinschaftsbildung)’ in contemporary contexts.2 According
to Troeltsch, three types of community are characteristic of Christianity
past and present: ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism. Entangled in
three ecclesiologies, these types effectively entail three conceptions of the
identity of Christianity.3 Troeltsch’s tripartite typology, then, tells a story
of ecclesiologies—in the plural rather than the singular.4
In this chapter, I will scrutinize the systematic structures in Troeltsch’s
tripartite typology. I aim to argue that Troeltsch anticipates Nicholas
M. Healy’s compelling critique of ‘blueprint ecclesiologies.’5 Like
1
SL, viii.
2
Ibid.
3
For a short summary, see DR, 12–13. See also Pearson, Beyond Essence, 65–67.
4
Arije L. Molendijk, Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie: Ernst Troeltschs Typen der christli-
chen Gemeinschaftsbildung (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996), offers a comprehen-
sive account of Troeltsch’s typology. For an ecclesiological exploration, see Fechtner,
Volkskirche, 79–122.
5
Nicholas M. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

106 U. SCHMIEDEL
lueprints, these ecclesiologies reduce ‘church’ to a clear-cut concept

b
in order to provide programmatic plans for what can and what cannot
count as church. When these plans are ‘put into practice,’ the blueprint
may shape the practice of concrete churches, but the practice of concrete
churches may not shape the blueprint.6 Thus, ecclesiology loses touch
with ecclesial practice and ecclesial practice loses touch with ecclesiology.
In three steps, I will explore how Troeltsch blurs these ecclesiologi-
cal blueprints: I will examine Troeltsch’s account of the practice of Jesus
in step 1. Although the practice of Jesus, his actions and his reflections
on his actions, engenders Paul’s ecclesiology, Jesus is interpreted as the
focus of the church but not as the founder of church. I will argue that,
for Troeltsch, the practice of Jesus and the reception of the practice of
Jesus resist the closure of community. In step 2, I will examine ecclesiasti-
cism, sectarianism and mysticism as community concepts which follow and
flow from the picture of the practice of Jesus in Paul’s emerging ecclesiol-
ogy. In these types, however, community is closed off against the other.
I will argue that the neutralization of the otherness of the other inherent
in these types reduces ecclesiology to blueprint ecclesiology. Finally, in
step 3, I will examine how Troeltsch concludes The Social Teachings of
the Christian Churches. Translating his core criterion for the construction
of church from a negative into a positive formulation, I will argue that
Troeltsch opens church to the otherness of the other. Thus, Troeltsch
makes a crucial contribution to the account of the open(ed) community
for which my study advocates.
Methodologically, Troeltsch combines theology and sociology. His
combination is inspired by his interpretation of Karl Marx.7 Troeltsch
accepts the Marxist distinction between material ‘structure’ and ideal
‘superstructure.’ But structure and superstructure, he argues, are ordered
in circularity rather than causality: structure conditions superstructure as
much as superstructure conditions structure. Since theology tends to tackle
the ‘superstructure’ of the practices of Christianity and sociology tends
to tackle the ‘structure’ of the practices of Christianity, Troeltsch com-
bines both approaches for a comprehensive interpretation of practice.8 He
6
Ibid., 25–51.
7
For Troeltsch’s discussion of what he calls the ‘Marxist Method,’ see HP, 536–598.
Warren S. Goldstein investigates the impact of Marx and Marxism on Troeltsch in
‘Reconstructing the Classics: Weber, Troeltsch, and the Historical Materialists,’ International
Archive of the History of Ideas 26/4–5 (2015), 470–507.
8
SL, 1–15.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNITY 107
continues to criticize both theological reductionism and non-theological

reductionism (as examined in Chaps. 2 and 3) when he contends that one
has to decide ‘from case to case’ whether the Christian influenced the
non-Christian or the non-Christian influenced the Christian.9 Contrary
to the contention of his critics past and present, then, Troeltsch concedes
that religion—in his case, Christianity—can be both phenomenal and
epiphenomenal.10
However, despite its innovative interdisciplinary design, Troeltsch’s
methodology comes with difficulties. His typology might be characterized
as a conversation between two Troeltschs: one Troeltsch who conducts his
research historically and one Troeltsch who conducts his research system-
atically. Troeltsch’s oeuvre points to these two Troeltschs, highlighting the
twofold interest of his research.11 But often or all too often, the historian
Troeltsch (with his critical interest) trumps the systematician Troeltsch
(with his constructive interest).12 However, as I seek to show in the fol-
lowing three chapters, the systematic structures inherent in his typology
are significant to understand the attacks on alterity which are inherent in
past and present constructions of community.
In order to highlight that I am concerned with the systematic struc-
tures implied by the Troeltschian typology, I deviate from Troeltsch’s des-
ignations of the three types. What Troeltsch calls ‘church’ is what I call
‘ecclesiasticism.’ For Troeltsch, the concept of church captures a compre-
hensive community. Consequently, he hesitates to call the Christian com-
munities subsequent to the Corpus Christianum ‘church’—a consequence
which I aim to avoid.13 By adding the suffix ‘ism’ to all of the types, I
draw attention to the fact that ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism
convey programmatic plans for the practice of church. These program-
matic plans neutralize the otherness of the other. I refer to ‘neutralization’
9
SL, 10. See also NR, 166–168.
10
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 71–86, analyzes how Troeltsch draws the distinction between
religious and non-religious factors in his account of history. She argues that this distinction
allows him to conceive of religion as influencing social causation, on the one hand, and as
influenced by social causation, on the other. See also ibid., 168–171.
11
SL, vii.
12
See Johannes Zachhuber, Theology as Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany: From
Ferdinand Christian Bauer to Ernst Troeltsch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013),
275–276, 284, 286-288. Zachhuber argues that the imbalance characteristic of Troeltsch’s
work stresses the impasse which contemporary discourses about theology had reached.
13
See AK, 1154, where Troeltsch suggests to use ‘christliche Gemeinschaft’ to refer to
churches after the Corpus Christianum.
108 U. SCHMIEDEL
here because the absence of alterity might, paradoxically, be accomplished

either through the exclusion of others or through the inclusion of oth-
ers—a paradox which needs to be explored and explained in order to
understand church as open(ed) community.
The Center of Christian Community

In his seminal study on practical-prophetic ecclesiology, Healy offers a
critique of what he calls ‘blueprint ecclesiologies.’14 These ecclesiologies
condense church into a ‘single concept,’ creating a ‘bipartite structure’
for ecclesiology which at once posits what can count as church and what
cannot count as church.15 Ecclesiology, then, operates prescriptively rather
than descriptively.16 Healy’s core contention is that the application of
these concepts disrupts the ‘hermeneutical circle’ which runs from eccle-
sial practice to ecclesiology to ecclesial practice.17 Equipped with the eccle-
sial blueprint, the ecclesiologist can criticize church but church cannot
criticize the ecclesiologist; thus, the ecclesiologist is enabled to be critical
but not to be self-critical. Through the disruption of the hermeneutical
circle, ecclesiology is divorced from ecclesial practice as much as ecclesial
practice is divorced from ecclesiology.18 Anticipating Healy’s compelling
critique, the Troeltschian typology of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and
mysticism traces the emergence of blueprint ecclesiologies throughout the
history of Christianity. I will argue that, for Troeltsch, the practice of Jesus
engenders the ecclesiology of Paul which escapes the closure of commu-
nity through engagement with the finite and the infinite other.
According to Troeltsch, the practice of Jesus concentrates on the verbal
as well as the nonverbal communication of the βασιλεία του Θεού—the
kingdom of God.19 Exegetes in the past and in the present have argued
that the kingdom of God is a central concept in the communication of
Jesus.20 For Troeltsch, it conveys a ‘turn to the … transcendent’ which
14
Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, 25–51.
15
Ibid., 26.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 46.
18
For a short summary, see Clare Watkins, ‘Practising Ecclesiology: From Product to
Process,’ Ecclesial Practices 2/1 (2015), 26–30.
19
SL, 34–35, 968–969.
20
See the overview in Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A
Comprehensive Guide, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 240–280.
announces God’s presence.21 Jesus’s announcement is vital for the ‘double

character’ of Christianity (already encountered in Chap. 3)22: Christianity,
Troeltsch contends, is characterized by a web of relations to the finite
other and to the infinite other.23 Throughout his oeuvre, he coins a variety
of concepts to depict these relations.24 His concern is that God, as articu-
lated when Jesus addresses God as ‘Father’ (Matthew 6:9–13), connects
the children of God in God. Thus, the relation to the finite other and the
relation to the infinite other are interrelated.25
Troeltsch’s characterization of Christianity retrieves the double com-
mandment of love for the construction of community: those who relate to
God personally relate to each other communally and those who relate to
each other communally relate to God personally.26 The kingdom of God
inspires ‘the order of love.’27 It has been contested whether Jesus invented
the double commandment of love, but—whether he did or did not—he
centered his communication in it.28 Troeltsch assesses the interrelated rela-
tions, around which the double commandment revolves, as ‘absolute.’29
Thus, the practice of Jesus communicates two contradictory conditions for
the construction of Christian community. On the one hand, the creature is
related to the creator in an absolutely personal manner—a relation which
might challenge the demands of her communal relation to the finite other.
21
SL, 39.
22
SL, 41.
23
Ibid. See also Pearson, Beyond Essence, 86–87, 112.
24
In SL, 41, Troeltsch refers to ‘individualism’ and ‘universalism’ both of which are quali-
fied as ‘absolute.’ But Troeltsch’s terminology is tricky because he argues that, within the
double character of Christianity, individualism does not exclude universalism and universal-
ism does not exclude individualism. Rather, as Troeltsch assumes in NR, 168–169, for
Christianity, universalism is a ‘correlate’ of individualism (ibid., 169).
25
SL, 41.
26
See Fechtner, Volkskirche, 60–62.
27
SP, 213.
28
See Jeanrond, A Theology of Love, 33–35. As Wolfgang Stegemenn, ‘Zur Deutung des
Urchristentums in den Soziallehren,’ in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’ 51–79, argues,
Troeltsch’s account of the Jewishness of Jesus is insufficient. But, considering his context, it
is noteworthy that Troeltsch is aware of the Jewishness of Jesus at all. See Pearson, Beyond
Essence, 70. Moreover, whereas his colleagues and contemporaries take the conflicts between
Jesus and the Jews as reported in the Gospels as a point of departure for their portrayals of
Jesus, Troeltsch contextualizes Jesus within Judaism. See Johann Hinrich Claussen, Die
Jesus-Deutung von Ernst Troeltsch im Kontext der liberalen Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1997), 288–289.
29
SL, 41.
110 U. SCHMIEDEL
On the other hand, the creature is related to the creature in an absolutely

communal manner—a relation which might challenge the demands of her
personal relation to the infinite other. The order of love could combine
these contradictory conditions.30 Yet since the order of love is, as Troeltsch
argues, ‘above all the act of God,’31 such a combination is ‘utopian.’32
Ecclesiologically, the concept of οὐτοπία—literally, ‘non-place’—is instruc-
tive33: it allows for a critical and creative distanciation from any practice
of church which claims to capture the contradictory conditions for the
construction of Christian community completely. The kingdom of God
cannot be ‘transformed into a social-philosophical or a social-theological
theory’ without falling for ‘confused chiliastic fantasies.’34 However, if
the kingdom of God is (as Troeltsch asserts) simultaneously come and to
come,35 then it is not a non-place.36 It has a place, albeit not finally or fully.
Thus, it is an eschatological rather than an ecclesiological category.
Troeltsch conceives of the interrelated relations to the finite other and
to the infinite other as the center of Christian community. Because the
center is eschatological rather than ecclesiological, it is characterized by
a ‘duality’ of prolepsis and participation: present in its absence, absent in
its presence.37 Eschatology, then, enables the ecclesiologist to resist the
freeze-frame of communal closure. The relations to the finite other and
the relations to the infinite other interrelate in the center of Christian
community, but their interrelation can be conceptualized neither fully nor
finally.38 As Troeltsch put it, scribbling into the margins of his The Social
30
Conceptually, Troeltsch draws a distinction between two individualisms: a religious one
with reference to God and a non-religious one without reference to God. The religious one
allows while the non-religious one disallows for the inclusion of community. Pearson, Beyond
Essence, 111–123, traces these individualisms to Troeltsch’s interpretation of Stoicism, where
Stoicism sides with the non-religious rather than the religious individualism. The distinction
is also apparent in Troeltsch’s account of the Enlightenment.
31
SP, 212.
32
SP, 213. See also SL, 48–49, 985–986. For the combination of these interrelated rela-
tions in Troeltsch’s notion of the kingdom of God, see Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 184–188.
33
The eschatology of Jesus stirred up considerable controversy among the contemporaries
of Troeltsch. The core concern was whether the establishment of the kingdom of God is to
be interpreted eschatologically or non-eschatologically. See the overview in Claussen, Jesus-
Deutung, 78–124.
34
SP, 213.
35
SL, 34.
36
I will return to the discussion of ‘utopia’ in Chaps. 5 and 8.
37
SP, 212.
38
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 88.
Teachings of the Christian Churches, the practice of Jesus is ‘vor’—which is

to say, temporally and spatially prior to—the construction of community.39
For Troeltsch, then, Jesus is the focus of church but not the founder of
church.
Nonetheless, the movement which gathered around Jesus, ‘free and
floating’ as it was, has inspired community.40 In his emerging ecclesiology,
Paul defines or redefines the center of Christian community christologi-
cally—a (re)definition which has been influential throughout the history
of Christianity.41 For Paul, the relation to the finite other and the rela-
tion to the infinite other interrelate ἐν Χριστῷ, a metaphor which occurs
throughout his letters.42 On Troeltsch’s account, Paul perceives Christ
as the ‘Pneuma-Christ.’43 Pneumatologically, Christ is interpreted as the
interrelation of the relation to the infinite other with the relation to the
finite other.44 Through Christ, then, Christians become the σώμα Χριστού,
the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:1–30; Rom. 12:3–8).45 Christ lives through
Christians and Christians live through Christ.
Paul’s ecclesiology retrieves the center of community which is implied
in Jesus’s communication of the kingdom of God for the construction of
church; it retrieves eschatology for ecclesiology. His ecclesiology marks
the invention of a Christian in contrast to a non-Christian communi-
ty.46 Yet, Paul escapes the closure of church through the metaphor of the
39
Troeltsch, cited in Drescher, Ernst Troeltsch, 337n. 305, ET: 410n. 305.
40
SL, 58.
41
SL, 49, 968–969. For a contextualization of Troeltsch’s interpretation of Paul’s theol-
ogy, see Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 125–156. The question was whether Paul should be con-
sidered a continuation or a corruption of the person and preaching of Jesus. For Troeltsch,
Paul’s ecclesiology is a consequence of the practice of Jesus. However, it is noteworthy that
the early ecclesiologies of Christianity cannot be reduced to Paul’s. See Paula Gooder, ‘In
Search of the Early Church: The New Testament and the Development of Christian
Communities,’ in The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, esp. 17–18.
42
SL, 60. Here, Troeltsch comes close to Albert Schweitzer, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1931), who argued that the metaphor of ἐν Χριστῷ is crucial for
what he interpreted as Paul’s mysticism. See also the exegetical and historical accounts in ‘In
Christ’ in Paul, ed. Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer and Constantine R. Campbell
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).
43
SL, 59.
44
Ibid.
45
SL, 59–60. See also Haight, Christian Community in History, vol. 1, 77–83.
46
SL, 58–59, 69. See Fechtner, Volkskirche, 61–62.
112 U. SCHMIEDEL
body of Christ. ‘The metaphor is self-evident: many make up one,’ thus

acknowledging difference and abolishing division.47 Paul utilizes this met-
aphor to engage alterity.48 What I call ‘the otherness of the other’ offers
the ‘motivation and the matter for the activity of love (Liebestätigkeit)’ in
Paul—which is to say, the center of a construction of community charac-
terized by interrelated relations.49
The otherness of the other is recognized through a subordination in
which everybody respects everybody because of their relation to God.50
For Troeltsch, Paul draws a distinction between equality in the religious
realm (equality in front of the infinite other) and equality in the non-
religious realm (equality in front of the finite other).51 In Paul’s ecclesiol-
ogy, equality is primarily theological and secondarily sociological because
it is rooted in the turn to the transcendent as communicated by Jesus.52
According to Troeltsch, these Pauline priorities were interpreted differently
throughout the history of Christianity, allowing for both the confirmation
and the critique of social, cultural, political or economic inequality.53 For
Troeltsch, the christological concept of the church as the body of Christ is
the Pauline manifestation of the interrelated relations to the finite and to
the infinite other which characterize the center of Christian community.54
Christ is (at) the center of community. But like a body consisting of differ-
ent and diverse parts, the center escapes communal closure.
To summarize, the center of Christian community cannot be captured.
In the practice of Jesus, the interrelated relations to the finite and to the
infinite other are characterized as eschatological rather than ecclesiologi-
47
Haight, Christian Community in History, vol. 3, 86. While the metaphor of the body
implies the recognition of difference and diversity, it has been interpreted to exclude the
other throughout the history of theology. See Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology,
42–44. In Chap. 8 of my study, I will examine the interpretations of the metaphor of the
body of Christ in the ecclesiologies of Pete Ward and Graham Ward for their accounts of the
other.
48
SL, 66.
49
Ibid.
50
SL, 68–69. According to Troeltsch, then, Paul adds the notion of a hierarchy to the
interrelated relations to the finite and to the infinite other. See Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 145.
51
SL, 60–62.
52
Ibid. See also Pearson, Beyond Essence, 115–116.
53
Troeltsch’s argument runs through SL, 60–68. The fact that, throughout history,
Christians both confirmed and criticized slavery is a case in point. See Lauster, Die
Verzauberung, 549–554.
54
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 106, 115–116.
cal. In Paul’s reception of the practice of Jesus, christology is employed

to transpose the center from eschatology to ecclesiology. Christ is where
the relations to the finite and to the infinite other intersect. According to
Troeltsch, Paul offered the classic concept of the contradictory conditions
for community inherent in the practice of Jesus: the personal relation to
the creator and the communal relation to the creature are reconciled in
Christ.55 Crucially, Paul’s classic concept resists closure. When Troeltsch
contends that there is no absolute anchor in which constructions of
church could be fixed, he formulates the core criterion of his ecclesiology
negatively rather than positively.56 Ecclesiology ought not to be closed off
against the other.57
But what happens to the resistance against the closure of community
in the history of Christianity? How have Christians lived the relation to
their finite other? How have Christians lived the relation to their infinite
other? Troeltsch aims to ask and answer these questions with his tripartite
typology.
The Closure of Christian Community

At the inauguration of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie in 1910,
Troeltsch presented the tripartite typology of ecclesiasticism, sectarian-
ism and mysticism for the first time.58 In his lecture, Troeltsch argued
that Christianity’s concept of community is easily explained.59 Again, his
characterization points to the way in which the relation to the finite other
and the relation to the infinite other interrelate.60 But Troeltsch’s point is
that the communities which followed from the communication of these
interrelated relations in the practice of Jesus distanced themselves from
55
SL, 76.
56
SL, 977.
57
SL, 986. The distinction Troeltsch draws between the practice of Jesus and the memori-
zation of the practice of Jesus in Paul is instructive: it allows for an analysis of the origin(s) of
Christianity as plurality rather than singularity. See Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 150–151. See
also Gooder, ‘In Search of the Early Church,’ 9–27.
58
A collection of the lectures delivered at the conference appeared as Verhandlungen des
Ersten Deutschen Soziologentages, ed. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1911). Christopher Adair-Toteff translated the lectures (but not the discussions
which followed the lectures). See his Sociological Beginnings: The First Conference of the
German Society for Sociology (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005).
59
NL, 323. See also NR, 168.
60
NL, 323–324.
114 U. SCHMIEDEL
both the religious and the non-religious communities in their context.61

What Troeltsch bears in mind here is the complex and complicated process
of the construction of identity. Of course, the concept of identity is con-
troversial.62 As it involves notions of what can and what cannot count as
the same, it immediately alludes to what is included and what is excluded,
who is an insider and who is an outsider, and how the distinction between
identity and alterity is drawn by a community. According to Troeltsch,
Christianity allows for universalistic, particularistic and individualistic
constructions of identity.63 In his lecture, which offers a succinct summary
of The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, he analyzed how these
identities were accentuated throughout history, resulting in the typol-
ogy of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism.64 Although Troeltsch’s
study on the history of Christianity ought not to be reduced to the tri-
partite typology,65 I will concentrate on ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and
mysticism to explore how the concepts of community inherent in these
three types neutralize the other.
Troeltsch’s typology has been analyzed again and again.66 By pointing
to convergences and divergences between the sociohistorical c onditions
of the past context and the sociohistorical conditions of the present
61
Ibid.
62
For a short summary, see Steph Lawler, Identity: Sociological Perspectives (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2008).
63
NL, 328. Exegetically, Gerd Theissen, Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), affirmed Troeltsch’s account. For Theissen, ecclesiasti-
cism, sectarianism and mysticism are rooted (albeit indirectly rather than directly) in the
movement which gathered around Jesus.
64
NR, 328.
65
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 134–135. Interestingly, Troeltsch had not developed the typol-
ogy in advance; he used the historical material of his research to structure the typology rather
than the typology to structure the historical material of his research. Writing The Social
Teachings of the Christian Churches, he construed a variety of typologies before he concluded
with the three types of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism. See Friedrich Wilhelm
Graf, ‘“Endlich große Bücher schreiben”: Marginalien zur Werkgeschichte der Soziallehren,’
in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’ 27–48. For a detailed discussion, see also the chapter, ‘Die
Entwicklungsgeschichte der Typologie,’ in Molendijk, Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie,
33–84.
66
See Roland Robertson, ‘On the Analysis of Mysticism: Pre-Weberian, Weberian and
Post-Weberian,’ Sociological Analysis 36 (1975), 241–266. He argues that Troeltsch’s typol-
ogy has often been ‘slaughtered’—‘accomplishment of such is … one of the earliest rites of
passage which sociology-of-religion neophytes have to undergo’ (ibid., 242). Molendijk,
Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie, offers a comprehensive historical analysis. For a short sum-
mary in English, see Pearson, Beyond Essence, 128–130.
context of Christianity, these analyses concluded that the types are not
appropriate today.67 Troeltsch, too, followed such a method of analysis.
He concluded by pointing to the differences between pre-Enlightenment
and post-Enlightenment societies in order to argue that the three types
could not survive under contemporary conditions.68 However, build-
ing on Troeltsch’s argument that the interrelated relations to the infi-
nite other and to the finite other are at the center of community, I aim
to argue systematically rather than historically: I wager that the types of
Troeltsch’s tripartite typology are inappropriate in both the past and the
present, because they close church off against the other. The corollary
of this closure is that the concrete church is reduced to the conceptual
church—blueprint ecclesiology as criticized by Healy. I will look at each
of the three closures in turn.
Ecclesiasticism
Ecclesiasticism (‘church’ in Troeltsch’s terminology) has been influen-
tial for ecclesiologies in both the past and the present. Connected to the
Corpus Christianum, it captures the criteria of a comprehensive church.69
For Troeltsch, these criteria are consciously or unconsciously carried
into contemporary ecclesiologies: both Catholicism and Protestantism
dream the dream of a comprehensive church.70 To characterize eccle-
siasticism, Troeltsch coins the concept of ‘Einheitskultur,’ pointing
to the unified-and-unifying control of church over culture.71 Troeltsch
assesses the ‘Einheitskultur’ of the church as a ‘culture of coercion.’72 For
ecclesiasticism, there is no difference between Christian culture and non-
67
Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Henry Holt,
1929), lead the way for the reconstructions of Troeltsch’s typology, arguing that the context
in the United States of America created a type in-between ecclesiasticism and sectarianism—
namely, denominationalism.
68
SL, 979–986. Troeltsch’s account of modernity stresses the ambiguity of the conse-
quences of the Enlightenment. See EM, 237–272. See also Lori Pearson, ‘Ernst Troeltsch on
the Enlightenment, Modernity, and Cultural Values,’ in Die aufgeklärte Religion und ihre
Probleme, 449–459. For a succinct summary of Troeltsch’s interpretation of the
Enlightenment, see Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 152–156.
69
SL, 233.
70
SL, 179–180.
71
SL, 223. See also Ulrich Köpf, ‘Die Idee der “Einheitskultur” des Mittelalters,’ in Ernst
Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’ 103–121.
72
SL, 223.
116 U. SCHMIEDEL
Christian culture: one cannot escape the ecclesial institution(alization)

which is either inherited or imposed.73 Crucially, the ecclesial institution
combines Christian and non-Christian elements in its ecclesiology—a
combination which requires the ‘mediation (Vermittelung)’ of the natural
and the supernatural.74
According to Troeltsch, Thomas Aquinas’s theology exemplifies the
mediation of the natural and the supernatural. For Thomas, the non-
Christian is the precursor of the Christian and the Christian is the perfection
of the non-Christian.75 Thus, both Christian and non-Christian elements
are mediated through the ‘common conception (Zweckzusammenhang)’
of church.76 What follows is a unified and uniform concept of church—
Troeltsch terms it ‘einheitlich.’77 Manifesting the unity and the uniformity
of the church, both the Christian and the non-Christian are compromised.
Both have to make concessions to each other.78 Troeltsch mistakes the
theology of Thomas for the theology of Thomism here.79 But there is
method to the mistake. Troeltsch is interested in the present rather than
the past. As he pointedly puts it, ecclesiasticism ‘provokes the exhilaration
that the church alone holds the keys to all social insight in her hands, as
the modern Thomists, facing today’s social crises, preach triumphantly.’80
Ecclesiasticism revolves around the concept of a universalistic identity
of Christianity. But can it cope with alterity? Ecclesiasticism promotes
comprehensive control over Christians and non-Christians alike. Although
such control cannot be maintained in practice,81 the other is interpreted as
the object of church rather than the subject of church. The other is to be
converted or coerced into the church. The other’s otherness, then, offers
only the occasion for coercion and conversion. Since salvation is inter-
preted as objective rather than subjective—which is to say, independent
of the practitioners of the church—ecclesiasticism can compromise with
culture.82
73
SL, 371. ‘Institution’ translates the technical term of Anstalt which Troeltsch borrowed
from contemporary concepts of corporate law. The central characteristic of the institution is
that it is not chosen by its members. See Fechtner, Volkskirche, 81–84.
74
SL, 264.
75
For Troeltsch’s account of Thomas Aquinas, see SL, 252–285.
76
SL, 292.
77
Ibid.
78
SL, 292–293.
79
Köpf, ‘Die Idee der “Einheitskultur” des Mittelalters,’ 118–120.
80
SL, 293.
81
SL, 179–180. See also Chap. 5 of my study.
82
SL, 967.
In the Einheitskultur of church and culture, Christ is interpreted as the

redeemer who always already accomplished redemption, thus establishing
and endowing the church with it.83 Through the sacraments, the church
communicates redemption.84 However, any attempt to communicate it
uniformly and universally, Troeltsch argues, founders if it is made without
coercion and control. Ecclesiasticism, then, forces the other into what it
holds to be redemptive for the other.85
Compared to the interrelated relations marking the center of commu-
nity in Paul’s picture of the practice of Jesus, ecclesiasticism ‘depersonalizes’
both the finite other and the infinite other in an overarching institution.86
The universalism of ecclesiasticism, then, contains a strategy to neutralize
the other: others are interpreted as objects rather than subjects. Through
the incapacitation of the other, ecclesiasticism prevents relations to the
other, because the other is sociologically and theologically confined to
the ecclesial conception of her from above. There is neither otherness nor
openness in ecclesiasticism. Ecclesiasticism provides a programmatic plan
for the universalistic church.87 Without the ‘relativization (Relativierung)’
of both church and culture in a comprehensive compromise, the unified-
and-unifying culture of ecclesiasticism would be impossible.88 However, it
is such relativization which provokes the types of sectarianism and mysti-
cism as anti-types to ecclesiasticism.
According to Troeltsch, sectarianism and mysticism are ‘complemen-
tary movements (Komplementärbewegungen)’ to ecclesiasticism.89 While
these movements were contained within Christendom, the Reformation
provoked sectarianism and mysticism to gain independence from the
church.90 Terminologically, Troeltsch points out that it is deceptive to
define sectarianism and mysticism as heresies.91 The distinction between
orthodoxy and heterodoxy is drawn from the stance of ecclesiasticism:
83
SP, 220.
84
SL, 968.
85
SL, 971.
86
SP, 220.
87
SL, 794.
88
SL, 264.
89
SL, 794.
90
Ibid. I will discuss Troeltsch’s account of the Reformation in Chap. 6.
91
SL, 367–368, 849.
118 U. SCHMIEDEL
ecclesiasticism homogenizes sectarianism and mysticism into the category

of heresy.92 Their heterogeneity, however, is indispensable for Troeltsch.
Sectarianism
Sectarianism counters the mediation between the Christian and the non-
Christian which characterizes ecclesiasticism. It strictly separates the
insider from the outsider.93 The ‘conscious choice’94 of the practitioner
to be either inside the sect or outside the sect allows for this separation
which results in the association of practitioners vis-à-vis the association of
non-practitioners.95
Therefore, everything is dependent on personal performance and partici-

pation; everybody has a share in the community … Connections are not
mediated through the communal possession, but manifested … through the
personal relation of life (Lebensbeziehung).96
The choice of the practitioners provokes the strict separation between

the Christian and the non-Christian which is constitutive of sectarianism.
Accordingly, the sectarianist church of choice is not comprehensive but
confined. As a consequence, it is capable of radicalism rather than rela-
tivism.97 Compromise, the core category of ecclesiasticism, is ruled out.
Either conflict or competition flow from the separation of insiders and
outsiders.98 Sectarianism, then, operates with a particularistic concept of
the identity of Christianity.
When examining sectarianism for its approach to the otherness of the
other, it is important to distinguish between internal others and external
others. Since sectarianism still aims for control, the other is allocated to
the outside rather than to the inside. Internally, sectarianism is marked by
the absence of alterity. It formulates requirements which have to be met
92
SP, 221.
93
SL, 361–362.
94
SL, 372.
95
The concept of ‘association (Verein)’ is the counter-concept to the concept of ‘institu-
tion’: one can choose to join an association but one cannot choose to join an institution. SL,
838–839.
96
SL, 372.
97
SL, 427, 967.
98
SL, 804–805.
by its members.99 These requirements shape the particularistic identity of

sectarianism. The otherness of the other is acknowledged in her conver-
sion or non-conversion to the requirements of identity—which is to say,
the decision to join or not to join. But once the decision has been made,
she has to conform in her beliefs and behaviors.
Conformity is instigated through a reinterpretation of redemption.
Redemption is a project rather than a possession of the church: it is sub-
jective rather than objective; achieved rather than ascribed.100 Christ is
interpreted as the ‘lord’ whose ‘law’ leads the practitioners of church in
contrast to the practitioners of non-church.101 Since redemption is inter-
preted as a reward, it is closely connected to the conditions set by sectari-
anism: whoever can meet these conditions is an insider, whoever cannot
meet these conditions is an outsider. The corollary is that sectarianism
concentrates on ‘the constant control of faith.’102 This control enables a
characterization of otherness as a matter of the outside rather than the
inside.
Troeltsch stresses that sectarianism is not corroded but constituted
through its concentration on choice: the practitioner has to prove her-
self by following the code of conduct characteristic of her church.103 The
one who cannot follow this code is expelled from the community. Thus,
the other fulfills a function which is essential to the survival of sectarian-
ism. She is instrumentalized in the interest of the bonding of a homoge-
neous community. The community includes whatever does conform and
excludes whatever does not conform to itself, thus strengthening its iden-
tity.104 Here, alterity confirms identity. To offer a contested current exam-
ple, one could imagine a community which excludes any person with what
is construed as ‘deviant’ sexuality, assuming that her sexuality impacts the
relation to God. Indeed, the community would have to abolish any form
of sexuality which deviates from its posited norm, thus losing its ability to
engage the other self-critically. Here, there can be no critique of norms
without dissolving the sectarianist separation of insider and outsider.
nity in Paul’s picture of the practice of Jesus, sectarianism neutralizes the
99
SL, 370.
100
Ibid.
101
SL, 370–372, 380–381, 968.
102
SP, 221.
103
SL, 372.
104
SL, 372–373.
120 U. SCHMIEDEL
other. God is connected to those inside the church; God is not connected
to those outside the church. Thus, the otherness of God is not respected.
God is owned by the sect. The sectarianist bipartition of God leads to a
binary interpretation of reality. Yet, Troeltsch acknowledges that the prac-
titioners hold to this bipartition without becoming or being ‘mad (irre)
with regard to the absoluteness of their truth.’105 The corollary of the
binary partition of God is the binary partition of God’s creatures—insid-
ers versus outsiders.106 Thus, sectarianism allows for otherness, but not for
openness: the other is external as opposed to internal. Sectarianism, then,
provides a programmatic plan for the particularistic church.
Mysticism
Mysticism is rooted in what Troeltsch calls ‘Unmittelbarmachung’107:
it renders Christianity immediate to Christians. The mystical immedi-
acy counters both ecclesiasticism and sectarianism. In mysticism, then,
Christianity is neither universalistic nor particularistic but individualistic.
Troeltsch even evaluates it as ‘radical individualism.’108
In the reception of Troeltsch’s typology, mysticism has been the most
controversial and the most contested type of community. Is it a commu-
nity at all? Already at the conference in 1910, where Troeltsch presented
his typology for the first time, the concept of mysticism stirred controver-
sy.109 Martin Buber argued that mysticism means the ‘apperception of God
(Apperzeption Gottes)’—a psychological rather than a sociological category
which negates community.110 Georg Simmel asked whether Christianity
has social significance at all.111 Interestingly, Troeltsch responded not by
105
SL, 972.
106
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 129n. 20, points out that, for Troeltsch, sectarianism demands
tolerance in-between communities but dismisses tolerance in communities.
107
SL, 850, 967.
108
SL, 864. I am aware of the fact that mysticism might be misunderstood if it is reduced
to individualism. See esp. the introduction to the history of mysticism by Bernard McGinn,
‘The Nature of Mysticism: A Heuristic Sketch,’ in Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A
History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1: ‘The Foundations of Mysticism’ (London:
SCM, 1991), xiii–xx. Here, however, I focus on Troeltsch’s type of mysticism for which
individualism is the core characteristic.
109
See Fechtner, Volkskirche, 98–99.
110
Martin Buber, cited in Verhandlungen, 206.
111
Georg Simmel, cited in Verhandlungen, 205. The response to Simmel is instructive for
Troeltsch’s reception of Simmel. For a comprehensive account, see Friedemann Voigt, ‘Die
redefining the typology according to the critique, but by redefining the

critique according to the typology. For Troeltsch, the assumption that
Christianity has no social significance, that it is a psychological rather
than a sociological force, was ‘nothing but an illustration of’ his type of
mysticism.112
Troeltsch distinguishes conceptual mysticism and concrete mysticism—
admittedly, a distinction which is ‘confusing, if not confused.’113 On the
one hand, conceptual mysticism signifies a form of religiosity which is
characterized by experience. On the other hand, concrete mysticism signi-
fies a reaction to the dogmatism inherent in ecclesiasticism and sectarian-
ism. Thus, concrete mysticism draws on conceptual mysticism in order to
free religion from its dogmatic domestications. The concrete cases which
Troeltsch bears in mind are the transformations of Christianity through
which Christians are enabled to live their faith outside rather than inside
churches.114 Hence, Troeltsch’s mysticism is a modern rather than a pre-
modern (or postmodern) phenomenon. By labeling these transformations
of Christianity ‘mysticism,’ Troeltsch provides them with a pedigree that
Tragödie des Reiches Gottes’: Ernst Troeltsch als Leser Georg Simmels (Gütersloh: Gütersloher
Verlagshaus, 1998).
112
Troeltsch, cited in Verhandlungen, 213.
113
Joel D.S. Rasmussen, ‘Mysticism as a Category of Inquiry in the Philosophies of Ernst
Troeltsch and William James,’ in Exploring Lost Dimensions in Christian Mysticism, 53.
Rasmussen analyzes the impact of James’s concept of experience on Troeltsch’s type of mys-
ticism. Although Troeltsch refers to James only once in The Social Teachings of the Christian
Churches, Rasmussen argues that James’s concept of experience is crucial for Troeltsch’s third
type (ibid., 62–63). Since Troeltsch criticizes James for the individualization and interioriza-
tion of experience, Rasmussen concludes: ‘Somewhat incongruously, then, Troeltsch appar-
ently comes under his own critique here’ (ibid., 63). However, Rasmussen does not take into
account that Troeltsch is critical of James because James pushes mysticism to the extreme.
See also Joel D.S. Rasmussen, ‘Empiricism and Mysticism in Ernst Troeltsch’s Philosophy of
Religion,’ Mitteilungen der Ernst-Troeltsch-Gesellschaft 13 (2000), 48–65. For a contextual-
ization and conceptualization of Troeltsch’s concept of mysticism, see Arie L. Molendijk,
‘Bewußte Mystik: Zur grundlegenden Bedeutung des Mystikbegriffs im Werk von Ernst
Troeltsch,’ Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 41/1 (1999),
39–61.
114
See Johannes Zachhuber, ‘Mysticism as a Social-Type of Christianity,’ in Exploring Lost
Dimensions in Christian Mysticism, 74–75. Thus, it could be argued that Troeltsch’s mysti-
cism anticipates and augments the notion of the spiritual revolution in Paul Heelas and Linda
Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2005).
122 U. SCHMIEDEL
can be traced back to the practice of Jesus.115 Thus, he argues that the
interiorization and the individualization of religion cannot be written off
as its past and present critics would have it.116
For Troeltsch, mysticism is characterized by the ‘urge’ for ‘interior-
ity’ and ‘immediacy’ which aims for ‘contemporaneity’ with the ‘event’
of religion.117 This urge reacts to the objectification of religion in reli-
gious institutions and religious traditions, attempting to subjectify, or
rather re-subjectify, these objectifications.118 If it is driven too far, mysti-
cism results in the obliteration of history, thus neglecting or negating the
construction of community.119 But Troeltsch argues that with or without
the obliteration of history, mysticism aims for a community which encom-
passes humanity so as to render the construction of concrete communities
redundant. Communities are simply seen as concessions to the need for
conviviality120—the ‘parallelism of religious spontaneities (Parallelismus
religiöser Spontaneitäten)’ which accepts authority as internal but not as
external.121 The fact that authority is internalized and individualized has
consequences for the theology of mysticism: the immediate and internal
experience is marshaled against authority.122
In mysticism, the relation to God is interpreted as independent from its
historical or cultural expression such that both Christian and non-Christian
elements can be incorporated into mystical theology.123 Expressions are not
an end but the means to an end—the stimulation of the precious personal
event of religion in which redemption is rooted.124 Hence, redemption is
neither objective as in ecclesiasticism, nor subjective as in sectarianism, but
115
Zachhuber, ‘Mysticism as a Social-Type of Christianity,’ 79–80. See also Trutz
Rendtorff, ‘“Meine eigene Theologie ist spiritualistisch”: Zur Funktion der “Mystik” als
Sozialform modernen Christentums,’ in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’ 188.
116
Zachhuber, ‘Mysticism as a Social-Type of Christianity,’ 74–75. The critique of secular-
ization theory led to a re-discovery of Troeltsch’s type of mysticism. See William A. Garrett,
‘Maligned Mysticism: The Maledicted Career of Troeltsch’s Third Type,’ Sociological
Analysis 36 (1975), 205–223; Karl-Fritz Daiber, ‘Mysticism: Troeltsch’s Third Type of
Religious Collectivities,’ Social Compass 49/3 (2002), 329–341.
117
SL, 850. See also NR, 22.
118
Ibid.
119
SL, 940.
120
SL, 864.
121
Ibid.
122
SL, 858.
123
SL, 866.
124
SL, 858.
relative: it is ‘redemption in the … religious event.’125 In mysticism, then,

Christ is interpreted as a ‘principle’ rather than a ‘person.’126 The truth of
the principle ‘lies ineffably beyond the literal forms.’127 Mysticism operates
with an individualistic concept of the identity of Christianity because the
truth of this principle is experienced internally and individually. Again, to
offer a contested current example, one could imagine a community which
includes any person with what is construed as ‘deviant’ sexuality, assuming
that her sexuality does not impact her relation to God. Indeed, the com-
munity would have to acknowledge any form of sexuality, thus losing its
ability to engage the other critically. Here, there can be no construction of
norms without dissolving the mysticist unification of insider and outsider.
nity in Paul’s picture of the practice of Jesus, mysticism prioritizes one
of these relations: the relation to God.128 The relation to God is inte-
riorized and individualized. Consequently, the mystic’s concept of God
cannot be challenged because the creator is always already imbibed into
the creature. Community is conceived of as ‘invisible church’ rather than
‘visible church.’129 Such a conception of church allows for the toleration
of the other.130 However, tolerance is rooted in the neutralization of the
otherness of the other: the other can be tolerated because her otherness is
deemed irrelevant for the relation to God. Thus, the other fulfills a func-
tion which is essential to the survival of mysticism. She is instrumentalized
for the bridging of a homogeneous community. The community includes
each and everybody, but in a loose confederation of others where otherness
is not engaged or encountered, merely passively present.131 Here, alterity
confirms identity. Mysticism allows for openness but not for otherness.
The otherness of both the infinite and of the finite other is n eutralized.
Mysticism, then, offers a programmatic plan for the individualistic church.
125
SL, 876.
126
SL, 968.
127
SL, 972.
128
SL, 864.
129
SL, 865. In the history of theology, the distinction between ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’
church can be traced back to Augustine. It is indispensable to the ecclesiology of Martin
Luther. For a succinct summary, see Ulrich Barth, ‘Sichtbare und unsichtbare Kirche,’ in
Christentumstheorie, ed. Klaus Tanner (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2008),
179–230. For a Lutheran critique of this distinction, see Harald Hegstad, The Real Church:
An Ecclesiology of the Visible (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2013).
130
SL, 872.
131
SL, 372–373.
124 U. SCHMIEDEL
To summarize, in The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches,

Troeltsch argues historically rather than systematically. Contrasting the
sociocultural conditions of the past to the sociocultural conditions of the
present, he concludes that ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism are
obsolete. However, examining Troeltsch’s types for their engagement or
non-engagement with alterity, I have uncovered systematic shortfalls in
the three Troeltschian types of community. Compared to the center of
community in Paul’s picture of the practice of Jesus, ecclesiasticism, sec-
tarianism and mysticism are to be characterized as closures of ecclesiology.
Ecclesiasticism recognizes neither openness nor otherness. Its culture of
comprehensive control incorporates the infinite and the finite other. This
incorporation requires the universality of Christianity which was disrupted
by the Reformation.
Both sectarianism and mysticism react to the pluralization of Christianity
provoked by the Reformation. Yet, these types also announce the neu-
tralization of alterity. Whereas sectarianism recognizes otherness without
openness, aiming for the particularistic manifestation of Christianity, mys-
ticism recognizes openness without otherness, aiming for the individual-
istic manifestation of Christianity. Either the other is neutralized through
exclusion in order to ‘bond’ a homogeneous community, or the other
is neutralized through inclusion in order to ‘bridge’ a heterogeneous
community.132
The consequences are the same in both cases: like ecclesiasticism,
sectarianism and mysticism construe communities which are character-
ized by the absence of alterity—blueprints for a construction of church
which disrupts the hermeneutical circle running from ecclesial practice to
ecclesiology to ecclesial practice. How can the ecclesiologist avoid such a
disruption?
132
For the terminology of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding,’ see Robert D. Putnam, Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2000), 22–23, who refers to ‘bonding’ in order to point to the excluding effects of com-
munities and to ‘bridging’ in order to point to the including effects of community. As Robert
Wuthnow, ‘Religious Involvement and Status-Bridging Social Capital,’ Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion 41/4 (2002), 670–673, argues ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ have to
be distinguished according to the respective point of reference. In my case, the point of refer-
ence is the identity of the community.
The (Re)Construction of Christian Community

Troeltsch concludes The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches by ask-
ing what his study might be contributing to the construction of church in
crisis.133 But his answers turn out to be sketchy. He argues that Christianity
hinges on the construction of community,134 but it is unclear which type
of community he has in mind. For Troeltsch, ecclesiasticism outruns sec-
tarianism and mysticism because it holds on to the characterization of
Christianity in terms of the gift of grace,135 drawing in persons from a
variety of contexts.136 However, the conditions for ecclesiasticism are cor-
roding.137 Ecclesiologists of both Protestantism and Catholicism are still
dreaming the dream of a comprehensive church, but Troeltsch knows
that this dream is over.138 After the Enlightenment, the culture of coer-
cion inherent in ecclesiasticism is no longer desirable or defensible. The
influx of both sectarianism and mysticism into church is inevitable. Since
their constructions of community counter the depersonalization inherent
in ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism are vital for the communi-
ties of church. Hence, eventually and effectively, Troeltsch advocates the
combination of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism.139 Through
their combination, he contends, churches might become communities, ‘in
which the different Christian minds can … work together peacefully.’140
Considering these conclusions, Troeltsch’s study ends abruptly without
turning from critique to construction. It comes as no surprise that it has
been assessed as a story of failure141: ‘Troeltsch is a failed theologian.’142
133
SL, 979–980.
134
SL, 980.
135
Ibid. See also Molendijk, Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie, 150–151.
136
See Pearson, Beyond Essence, 135.
137
SL, 981.
138
SL, 982.
139
Ibid.
140
SL, 982–983.
141
For the reception of The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, see Friedrich
Wilhelm Graf, ‘Weltanschauungshistoriographie: Rezensionen zur Erstausgabe der
Soziallehren,’ in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’ 226–227; and Gangolf Hübinger, ‘Ernst
Troeltschs Soziallehren in außertheologischer Sicht,’ in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Soziallehren,’
230–240.
142
Walter Bodenstein, Neige des Historismus: Ernst Troeltschs Entwicklungsgang (Gütersloh:
Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1959), 207. Here, Bodenstein formulates the sharpest statement
about Troeltsch’s failure. For a short summary of the reception of Troeltsch’s oeuvre in
ecclesiology, see Fechtner, Volkskirche, 17–26.
126 U. SCHMIEDEL
Troeltsch’s allegedly promising call for combination is actually problem-

atic. He has shown that ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism are
entangled in contradictory ecclesiologies; both their theologies and their
sociologies diverge. But how can these contradictions be reconciled in
an ecclesiology which attempts to combine the three types? In The Social
Teachings of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch offers no answers.143 Yet
even if the study is a failure, it fails productively rather than destructive-
ly.144 Troeltsch does not teach how ecclesiology ought to be done but how
ecclesiology ought not to be done.
It is striking that ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism com-
ply with the characteristics of ecclesiological blueprints as explicated by
Nicholas M. Healy. Condensed in the concepts of universalistic, particu-
laristic and individualistic identities of Christianity, these ecclesiologies put
programmatic plans into practice, thus disrupting the hermeneutical circle
which runs from ecclesial practice to ecclesiology to ecclesial practice. In
these ecclesiologies, the ecclesiologist can be critical with the practitio-
ners of church, but the practitioners of church cannot be critical with the
ecclesiologist. Healy commended a combination of ecclesiology and eth-
nography to blur the blueprints which have turned concrete churches into
appendixes of conceptual churches.145
In a recent rejoinder, however, Healy revisits his recommenda-
tion.146 Ethnographically, he argues, churches cannot be conceived of as
143
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 157–161, argues that, for Troeltsch, the combination of eccle-
siasticism, sectarianism and mysticism can take recourse to Schleiermacher’s ecclesiology. See
SK. However, even in his reading of Schleiermacher’s ecclesiology, Troeltsch neglects the fact
that the ecclesiologies of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism are—on his own
account—irreconcilable. For Troeltsch’s reading of Schleiermacher, see also Fechtner,
Volkskirche, 114–122. I will return to the reception of Schleiermacher’s ecclesiology by
Troeltsch in the Conclusion of my study.
144
Whether Troeltsch’s study should or should not be read as a failure depends on what
Troeltsch set out to achieve. Concentrating on ecclesiology, my reading pinpointed problems
in his proposal. Yet, these problems should not hide the fact that Troeltsch’s study offers a
history of Christianity which is as innovative as it is instructive in its methodology. See also
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 65–162.
145
Watkins, ‘Practicing Ecclesiology,’ 30–36.
146
Nicholas M. Healy, ‘Ecclesiology, Ethnography and God: An Interplay of Reality
Descriptions,’ in Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography, ed. Pete Ward (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 182–199. The reason for his rejoinder might be that Healy’s Church,
World and the Christian Life, in effect, entails elements of the blueprint ecclesiologies which
it criticizes. See Mannion, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity, 36–38. Thus, I read Church, World
c ommunities at all.147 For Healy, ‘coherence and consistency among the

members of any given congregation are not … to be expected.’148 In my
analysis, Healy falls for a sociological rather than a theological blueprint.
He applies a programmatic plan of community—one which concentrates
on coherence and consistency—to the practices of church.149 Troeltsch’s
study of the history of Christianity, however, indicates that Christian
community could be conceived of through both that which is coherent
and consistent and that which is incoherent and inconsistent. Troeltsch’s
assessment of the emerging ecclesiology of Paul which followed from the
practice of Jesus escapes the coherent and consistent conceptual closure
of the blueprint. Confronting ecclesiology with eschatology, Troeltsch
stresses that Jesus’s communication of the kingdom of God resists full and
final theorization. Hence, taking the interrelated relations to the finite
and to the infinite other as anchor and aim of the practices of church
allows ecclesiologists to approach these practices critically and creatively.
Troeltsch’s story of ecclesiologies operates with a negative rather than a
positive criterion: ecclesiology ought not to be closed. If it is transposed
from the negative to the positive, it could be conceptualized with the core
category of openness to otherness.
Troeltsch has been criticized because his conclusion offers no clear-cut
criteria for the construction of community.150 Yet in order to manifest the
interrelated relations to the finite and to the infinite other, ecclesiology
is to be continuously created, thus allowing the other to remain other.
Through openness to the other’s otherness, the interrelated relations
characterizing Christianity escape the freeze-frame of closure. Accepting
the exposure to the other which was avoided in the ecclesiasticism of
the Corpus Christianum, sectarianism and mysticism instrumentalize the
other either for the bonding of a homogeneous identity (otherness with-
out openness) or for the bridging of a heterogeneous identity (openness
without otherness). Alterity, the otherness of the other, is neutralized.
Healy falls for the sociological rather than the theological neutralization
of alterity when he assumes that community is characterized by identity
and the Christian Life not as a critique of any normative account of ecclesiology. Rather, it
cautions the ecclesiologist to be both critical and self-critical.
147
Healy, ‘Ecclesiology, Ethnography and God,’ 188.
148
Ibid., 187–188.
149
Ibid., 191.
150
See Graf, ‘Weltanschauungshistoriographie,’ 226–227.
128 U. SCHMIEDEL
rather than alterity.151 Theologically, he argues that church might be about

‘the capacity to bring its members into a closer relationship with God,
however that relation is understood.’152 Drawing on Troeltsch, ‘a closer
relationship with God’ comes with a closer relationship with God’s crea-
tures and a closer relationship with God’s creatures comes with ‘a closer
relationship with God’—‘however that relation is understood.’ The attack
on alterity which I have exposed in the ecclesiasticist, the sectarianist and
in the mysticist types of community, then, must be added to Healy’s con-
vincing critique of ecclesiological blueprints. For if the attack on alterity
turns ecclesiology into blueprint ecclesiology, then—by inversion—atten-
tion to alterity might be capable of turning it back. Thus, the ecclesiologist
cannot bypass community; for the conceptualization of community, she
could retrieve rather than reject sociology.
See Watkins, ‘Practicing Ecclesiology,’ 28–29.

151
Healy, ‘Ecclesiology, Ethnography and God,’ 193.

152
CHAPTER 5
The Attack on Alterity
Zygmunt Bauman is not a sociologist of religion. He treats religion only

in passing, criticizing both functional and substantial definitions.1 What
is at stake with the ‘survival strategy’ of religion, he argues, is a person’s
awareness of her limits2—an awareness which is historically and cultur-
ally conditioned.3 Through the processes of modernization, the condi-
tions for this awareness have changed such that it is increasingly found
in non-religious rather than religious forms and formulations.4 Bauman’s
thought, then, is implicitly indebted to the theory of secularization.5
However, Bauman is a sociologist of community. In this chapter, I aim
to argue that Bauman’s sociology identifies the attacks on alterity inherent
in Ernst Troeltsch’s types of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism. In
1
Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity and its Discontents (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997),
165–185. Kees de Groot, ‘Three Types of Liquid Religion,’ Implicit Religion 11/3 (2008),
279, criticizes that Bauman has not or not yet offered ‘a systematic account of religion.’
2
Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Survival as a Social Construct,’ Theory, Culture and Society 9/1
(1992), 13–14. See also the interview with Bauman conducted by Michael Hviid Jacobsen
and Michael C. Kear, ‘Liquid Immortality – An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman,’ Mortality:
Promoting the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying 19/3 (2014), 303–317.
3
Bauman, Postmodernity, 168–170.
4
Ibid., 197.
5
De Groot, ‘Three Types,’ 277. In the interview conducted by Jacobsen and Kear, ‘Liquid
Immortality,’ 311, Bauman refers to secularization as a much used and abused concept. See
also Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Postmodern Religion,’ in Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity,
ed. Paul Heelas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 55–78.

130 U. SCHMIEDEL
step 1, I will analyze how Bauman’s interpretation of community as utopia

exposes Troeltsch’s type of ecclesiasticism as a chimera. The construction
of the unified-and-unifying community of universalism is a utopia which
has haunted the past and the present. In step 2, I will analyze Bauman’s
account of how the construction of community might neutralize the other
either through anthropoemic strategies (neutralization by exclusion of the
other) or through anthropophagic strategies (neutralization by inclusion
of the other). Bauman’s concentration on the (neutralization of) the other
is instructive for substantiating my analysis of the closure of community in
Troeltsch’s types of sectarianism and mysticism. With the help of Bauman,
I will explore the significance which one’s choice has for one’s relation
to the other. If a community interprets engagement with the other as a
choice, it runs the risk of instrumentalizing her. In step 3, I will sketch
the contours of Bauman’s concept of a ‘community of concern.’ With
this concept Bauman attempts to chart ways beyond the attacks on alter-
ity in order to enable communities to engage the other by concentrating
on the practices of translation. However, Bauman neglects religion as a
resource for his account of community. Thus, his sociology helps to clarify
the problems of individualization, but not the solutions to the problems
of individualization.
Bauman is interested in the causes and consequences of individu-
alization—a process which he famously formulates as the shift from a
‘solid’ modern to a ‘liquid’ postmodern modernity.6 Hence, for Bauman,
modernity and postmodernity are not mutually exclusive.7 He argues that
‘liquefaction’ is the feature of both modernities; yet while solid moder-
nity liquefies with the aim of improved solidity, liquid modernity liquefies
without the aim of improved solidity: liquidity for the sake of liquidity.8
According to Bauman, the consequence of liquefaction is that the ‘“pub-
lic” is colonized by the “private”.’9 The ‘table, so to speak, has been
turned: the task of critical theory has been reversed … The task is now
6
See esp. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
7
Terminologically, Bauman tends to substitute the distinction between modernity and
postmodernity by the distinction between ‘solid modernity’ and ‘liquid modernity’ since the
publication of Liquid Modernity. For a short summary of the considerations which led him
to this substitution, see Zygmunt Bauman and Keith Tester, Conversations with Zygmunt
Bauman (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 96–98.
8
Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 2–5.
9
Ibid., 37.
THE ATTACK ON ALTERITY 131
to defend the vanishing public realm, or rather to refurnish and repopu-

late the public space fast emptying.’10 Bauman is aiming to address the
causes and the consequences of individualization in view of its casual-
ties. He accounts for these casualties through a concentration on alterity.
‘Notions of “inside” and “outside” dominate most of Bauman’s writing,
questions of who is to be “excluded” and who is to be “included”.’11
Thus, he interprets individualization through a reflection on the possi-
bilities and the impossibilities of relationality. One scene which captures
the issue of relationality is, according to Bauman, biblical. When God
confronts Cain with what he did to his brother, Cain responds: ‘Am I my
brother’s keeper?’ (Genesis 4:9). In his response, which simultaneously
answers and asks, Cain acknowledges that he is his brother’s keeper, albeit
grudgingly.12 But what could or should a response to God’s confronta-
tion look like today?
For my analysis, it is crucial to stress the significance of metaphors for
Bauman’s sociology. He combines the poetic and the prosaic, utilizing
stark and striking images in order to awaken his readers to their responsi-
bility to the other.13 ‘Bauman’s use of metaphor is part and parcel of his
wider “sociology of possibility”.’14 Metaphors are the tools for his ‘socio-
logical strategy’ of ‘defamiliarization’: they are ‘transferring,’ ‘transmut-
ing,’ ‘transforming’ and ‘transcending,’ thus opening up opportunities
for critical and creative engagement with the causes and consequences of
individualization.15 Bauman’s metaphors of the ‘solid’ and the ‘liquid’ for
modern and postmodern modernities are strikingly similar to Troeltsch’s
concept of elasticity, although ‘elasticity’ is located in-between the solid
and the liquid. Hence, Bauman’s metaphors might prove useful in trans-
posing Troeltsch’s typology from the past to the present.
10
Ibid., 39. See Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Seeking Shelter in Pandora’s Box,’ City 9/2 (2005),
161–168.
11
Michael Hviid Jacobson and Sophia Marshman, ‘Bauman on Metaphors – A Harbinger
of Humanistic Hybrid Sociology,’ in The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and
Critique, ed. Michael Hviid Jacobson and Paul Poder (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 24.
12
See Zygmunt Bauman, The Individualized Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001),
72–73. See also Jacobson and Marshman, ‘Bauman on Metaphors,’ 30.
13
Jacobson and Marshman, ‘Bauman on Metaphors,’ 21–22.
14
Ibid., 22.
15
Ibid., 23.
132 U. SCHMIEDEL
The Chimera of Community

Bauman’s oeuvre is peppered with the concept of community16; however,
as if putting on rubber gloves in order to avoid contamination with the
ambiguity of community, he repeatedly refers to ‘community’ in inverted
commas.17 ‘Unlike so many critics of modernity, Bauman feels no nos-
talgia for community.’18 Rather, he understands community as a utopia.
Either a past or a potential paradise, community is never in the present; it
‘is not, regrettably, available to us.’19 I will argue that Bauman’s utopia of
community exposes Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism as a chimera.
According to Bauman, the reason for the utopian unavailability of com-
munity is the anthropologically anchored tension between the personal
and the communal, a tension which ‘is unlikely ever to be resolved and so
likely to go on for a long time to come; not finding the right solution and
being frustrated by the one that has been tried will not prompt us to aban-
don the search—but to go on trying.’20 Bauman’s utopianism could be
characterized as a translation (perhaps secularization) of Troeltsch’s com-
bination of ecclesiology and eschatology. Similar to Troeltsch’s concept of
the kingdom of God, which I examined in Chap. 4, Bauman conceives of
community as a concept which cannot be put into practice. But because of
its utopian quality, ‘community’ might regulate communal practices criti-
cally and creatively. Hence, Troeltsch’s concentration on the interrelation
of the personal relation to the infinite other with the communal relation
to the finite other and Bauman’s emphasis on the tension between the per-
sonal and the communal fulfill a strikingly similar function. Both relativize
current communities, opening them up for critical and creative action.
Already in Socialism: The Active Utopia, Bauman argued for the force of
utopias which, through the relativization of a practice, allow practitioners
16
See esp. Zygmunt Bauman, Alone Again: Ethics after Certainty (London: Demos,
1994). Bauman’s analysis of community is summarized in Community: Seeking Safety in an
Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).
17
See the preface to the 2012 edition of Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Liquid
Modernity Revisited,’ Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), esp. vii–xix.
18
Fred Alford, ‘Bauman and Levinas: Levinas cannot be used,’ Journal for Cultural
Research 18/3 (2014), 251.
19
Bauman, Community, 3.
20
Ibid., 5.
to reshape their practice.21 Whereas Bauman is concerned with the relativ-

ization of culture, Troeltsch is concerned with the relativization of church.
Bauman traces the change of community throughout historical and
cultural developments, starting with Ferdinand Tönnies’s famous for-
mula of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft.22 Tönnies assumed that there are
two modes of togetherness: the ‘organic’ togetherness of a community
(Gemeinschaft) which is ascribed to the members of the community and
the ‘mechanic’ togetherness of a society (Gesellschaft) which is achieved
by the members of the community.23 With the advent of modernity, he
argued, mechanic togetherness superseded organic togetherness, society
superseded community. Bauman criticizes the romanticization of commu-
nity in Tönnies’s argument.24 For Bauman, Tönnies’s concept of commu-
nity is a chimera. It has never been available—neither in the past nor in the
present—because organic and mechanic togetherness are always already
interwoven. A community which ‘precedes all agreements and disagree-
ments’ is impossible.25 Actually, community is both the origin and the
outcome of agreements and disagreements: it is ascribed and achieved; it
is Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
However, Bauman nonetheless uses Tönnies’s core concepts of com-
munity and society as tools to rethink the conditions of togetherness.26
He stresses that the availability of increasing and intensifying speed in the
means of physical and non-physical communication gives the impression
of a shift from organic to mechanic togetherness.
21
Zygmunt Bauman, Socialism: The Active Utopia (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976),
13–16. See Michael Hviid Jacobson, ‘Bauman on Utopia – Welcome to the Hunting Zone,’
in The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, 214.
22
Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie
(Berlin: Karl Curtius, 1922), ET: Community and Civil Society, trans. Jose Harris and
Margaret Hollis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For issues connected to
the translation of Tönnies’s study, see the translators’ account in ibid., xxxviii–xl. In order to
avoid confusion, I stick to Bauman’s translation of ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’ with
‘community’ and ‘society.’
23
Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 8–81. (ET: 22–91). Accordingly, Tönnies argues
that ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’ are ‘Grundbegriffe’—fundamental or foundational
concepts—for sociology. For a succinct summary of Tönnies’s argument, see Delanty,
Community, 21–23.
24
Bauman, Community, 9–12.
25
Ibid., 10.
26
Accordingly, Bauman accepts ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’ as ‘Grundbegriffe.’ But
while he concurs with Tönnies’s theoretical argument, he criticizes Tönnies’s empirical argu-
ment about the supersession of community by society.
134 U. SCHMIEDEL
It was primarily the availability of fast means of travel that triggered the typi-
cally modern process of eroding … all locally entrenched social and cultural
‘totalities’; the process first captured … by Tönnies’s famous formula of
modernity as the passage from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft.27
Today, intra- and inter-community communication accelerate to the same

speed—‘both are instantaneous’—which is why the distinction is increas-
ingly irrelevant.28 But if the local cannot be discretely distinguished from
the global, togetherness cannot be taken for granted. Community is thus
turned into a ‘task,’ it is an ‘achievement’ as opposed to an ‘ascription.’29
According to Bauman, the construction of the identity of a community
is a reaction to the increase of mechanic togetherness and the decrease
of organic togetherness. The distinction between inside and outside pro-
duces ‘certainty and uncertainty.’30 If community is dissolved, this distinc-
tion, too, is dissolved. Accordingly, the concept of identity which captures
precisely this distinction between uncertain outside and certain inside is
increasingly of concern. If one belongs to Gemeinschaft as opposed to
Gesellschaft, the identity of the community is irrelevant: it is taken for
granted.31 But if one belongs to Gesellschaft as opposed to Gemeinschaft,
the opposite is the case. Bauman emphasizes that identity, ‘today’s talk of
the town … owes the attention it attracts … to being a surrogate of com-
munity: … of that circle that stays warm however cold the winds outside.’32
However, in order to fulfill the function of distinguishing between cer-
tainty and uncertainty, to offer safety and security,
identity must belie its origin; it must deny being ‘just a surrogate’—it needs
to conjure up a phantom of the self-same community which it has come to
replace. Identity spouts on the graveyard of communities, but flourishes
thanks to the promise of a resurrection of the dead.33
27
Zygmunt Bauman, Culture as Praxis: New Edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000),
xxii.
28
Ibid., xxiv.
29
Ibid., xxix.
30
Ibid., xxiii.
31
Ibid., xxx.
32
33
Ibid., 16.
Thus, Bauman concludes that contemporary ‘seekers of community are

doomed to share Tantalus’ lot.’34 If community is achieved as opposed to
ascribed, if it is a consequence of choice, it remains Gesellschaft as opposed
to Gemeinschaft.35 The nourishment is in reach, but whenever Tantalus
reaches for it, it retracts from him.
The similarities to Troeltsch’s typology are striking. Like Troeltsch,
Bauman interprets individualization as the imperative of choice which
turns community from the ascribed to the achieved. In the unified-
and-unifying culture of Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism, one cannot choose.
Community is inherited or imposed. But after the end of the unified-and-
unifying culture, one cannot not choose anymore. Bauman’s critique of
Tönnies’s separation of ascribed Gemeinschaft and achieved Gesellschaft
exposes Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism as a chimera.
The concept of a comprehensive church haunts both past and present
accounts of ecclesiology. But a unified-and-unifying culture is considered
either past or potential, a nebulous nostalgia which is never present. For
Troeltsch, the Corpus Christianum was not what ‘Romanticism would
have us believe’ because it was ‘full of conflict.’36 If ‘seen from a distance,’
he argues, the present is ‘perhaps not much more anarchical than’ the
past.37 Troeltsch concludes: ‘The decisive point is the realization that
monistic conceptions … are a fantastic delusion. No Present has ever
had such a view of itself; it has existed only in those Utopian longings.’38
Hence, I am arguing that Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism can be classified as eti-
ology: it interprets the imperative of choice as a consequence of the collapse
of the comprehensive church. Troeltsch already alludes to the interpreta-
tion of ecclesiasticism as a chimera in The Social Teachings of the Christian
Churches where he portrays it as more a matter of principle than a matter
of practice.39 But he seems to sway between interpretations of ecclesiasti-
cism as historical fact and interpretations of ecclesiasticism as historical
fiction.40
34
Ibid., 17.
35
Ibid., 14.
36
FV, 181.
37
FV, 181–182.
38
FV, 182. See also FV, 186–187.
39
SL, 113, 179.
40
According to Pearson, Beyond Essence, 138–140, Troeltsch conceives of the types as both
(factual) entities in the course of history and (fictional) entities in the historian’s interpreta-
tion of the course of history.
136 U. SCHMIEDEL
Bauman cautions those who are constructing ecclesial or non-ecclesial

communities against the chimera of a comprehensive community. He uses
the concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft to tackle the consequences
of a person’s choice to enter or not to enter a community. How are the
causes and the consequences of such a choice negotiated? Troeltsch under-
stands the types of sectarianism and mysticism as a reaction and a response
to the imperative of choice. These types are mirrored by Bauman’s curious
concepts of ‘Ghetto’ and ‘Carnival.’
The Anthropoemic and the Anthropophagic
If the aspiration to become or to be a comprehensive community—alleg-

edly ascribed as opposed to achieved—is put into practice under the
conditions of either modern or postmodern liquefaction, it implies the
neutralization of the other who disturbs and distorts the utopian (dysto-
pian?) unity and uniformity. Bauman distinguishes two strategies of neu-
tralization: the anthropoemic (neutralization by exclusion of what is other)
and the anthropophagic (neutralization by inclusion of what is other). The
consequences of these strategies are apparent in the ‘ghettoization’ or
the ‘carnivalization’ of community. I will argue that both strategies cor-
respond to Troeltsch’s types of sectarianism and mysticism respectively.
As explored in Chap. 4, Troeltsch’s sectarianism is characterized by the
separation of inside and outside. Such separation is also the marker of what
Bauman calls the ‘ghetto.’ With ‘ghetto’ he refers to communities which
attempt to offer safety and security through the division between insiders
and outsiders.41 The result of the separation is the gated community, the
‘voluntary ghetto.’42 In such a ghetto, insiders can go out (although they
would not want to), but outsiders cannot go in (although they would
want to).43 The corollary of the gated community of ghettoization is the
absence of alterity.44 Whoever or whatever does not conform to the iden-
tity of the community is expelled in order to produce safety and security.
Hence, as in Troeltsch’s sectarianism, cooperation with the other is ruled
41
42
Ibid., 116.
43
Ibid., 117.
44
Ibid., 115.
out. The defense of the community against internal and external others is
the ghetto’s core commitment.45
However, the insecurity which the ghetto aims to avert is paradoxically
its condition.46 For if one feels too safe and too secure, one might leave
the ghetto in order to sit ‘at the same table with “the aliens,” rubbing
shoulders while visiting the same places.’47 In order to avoid blurring the
boundaries between inside and outside, the ghetto aims ‘principally at the
perpetuation of division.’48 According to Bauman, the ghetto is charac-
teristic for religion in postmodernity. Sectarianism—one could also refer
to ‘fundamentalism’49—responds to the centrality of choice by masking
that it is chosen.50 A person chooses sectarianism, drawing the distinction
between inside and outside. Retrospectively, her choice is interpreted as
the only choice. This interpretation masks the fact that she could, or per-
haps should, have chosen otherwise. Thus, the ghetto conveys the impres-
sion of safety and security in spite of the uncertainty of choice.51 Hence,
Bauman’s concept of ghetto validates my analysis of the significance of
choice for Troeltsch’s sectarianism: the choice is masked, not unmasked.
As explored in Chap. 4, Troeltsch’s mysticism is characterized by the
combination of inside and outside. Combination is also the marker of
what Bauman calls ‘carnival.’ For Bauman, ‘carnival communities’52 are
communities which are continuously chosen and continuously changed.53
45
Ibid., 141–142.
46
Ibid., 142.
47
Ibid., 141.
48
Ibid., 141–142. According to Bauman, the ghetto(ized) community is the core concept
of communitarianism. Criticizing Charles Taylor, Bauman repeatedly refers to the tacit totali-
tarianism in communitarian concepts of community. See esp. Bauman, Culture as Praxis,
xxxvi–xlv. Here, I cannot trace whether Bauman’s critique is correct for points and phases in
the development of Taylor’s thought (for Bauman’s critique of communitarianism, see
Delanty, Community, 86–87, 91–91). Yet, the critique certainly misses Taylor’s account of
the cohabitation of persons with religious and non-religious worldviews. Here, Taylor
stresses the significance of the ‘overlapping consensus’ in ‘diverse democracies,’ a consensus
which is to be negotiated and renegotiated. See Charles Taylor, ‘Why We Need a Radical
Redefinition of Secularism,’ in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, ed. Eduardo
Mendieta and Jonathan Vanantwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 48.
49
See de Groot, ‘Three Types,’ 280. Mannion’s critique of what he calls ‘neo-exclusivism’
points to sectarianism. See Mannion, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity, 43–74.
50
51
Ibid., 184.
52
53
Ibid., 64.
138 U. SCHMIEDEL
Formed around the center of extraordinary social, cultural or political

events like carnivals, these communities are ‘transient.’54 In the carnival
community, the separation of inside and outside is collapsed—one can be
simultaneously inside and outside. Thus, the community is interpreted
as the manifestation of individuality.55 It tolerates everybody and every-
thing. Bauman evaluates the experience of the event—the center around
which the community is formed—as a ‘peg’ on which a person can hang
her fascinations and frustrations. The peg is what turns the carnival into
a community because it offers safety and security in spite of personal dif-
ferences.56 Playing with the concept of the peg, Bauman repeatedly labels
these communities ‘cloakroom communities,’ communities where one
changes one’s concern as quickly as one’s coat.57
However, like the ghetto, the carnival or the cloakroom is character-
ized by the absence of alterity. The peg comes without commitment.58 If
a person in the community disturbs the carnival—which is to say, if she
challenges the communal identity of non-commitment—she is met with a
tolerance that is tantamount to indifference or ignorance.59 As soon as oth-
erness matters, the other is stripped of her otherness. Because one chooses
this peg today and that peg tomorrow, ‘peg communities’ lose their drive
to organization in institutional or traditional structures.60 Hence, the inse-
curity which the carnival aims to avert is actually not averted. It is cov-
ered by the event of carnival. According to Bauman, the carnival—one
could refer to mysticism or spiritualism61—is characteristic for religion in
postmodernity, a religion which is outside institutions and traditions.62 It
concentrates on experience.63 A person chooses mysticism without draw-
ing a distinction between the inside and the outside of the mystical com-
munity. Retrospectively, her choice is emphasized. She is always already
free to choose, to be included or excluded from the peg event. Since she
can choose and change continuously, the community conveys the factual
54
Ibid., 70
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid., 71.
57
Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 199–201.
58
59
Ibid., 72.
60
Ibid., 71.
61
See de Groot, ‘Three Types,’ 280.
62
63
Ibid., 179–180. See also de Groot, ‘Three Types,’ 279.
or fictional impression of safety and security. Hence, Bauman’s concept of

carnival confirms my analysis of the significance of choice for Troeltsch’s
mysticism: choice is unmasked, not masked.
Overall, the critique of community runs through Bauman’s analysis of
togetherness in solid and liquid modernity. Communities offer safety and
security through the neutralization of the other. Community is construed
through the absence of alterity. As mentioned above, Bauman distinguishes
between two strategies to expel alterity from identity, thus neutralizing
the other: the ‘anthropoemic’ ghetto and the ‘anthropophagic’ carnival.64
This distinction pairs with Troeltsch’s distinction between sectarianism
and mysticism: the anthropoemic strategy allows for the ‘sectarianist’
acknowledgement of otherness without openness and the anthropophagic
strategy allows for the ‘mysticist’ acknowledgement of openness without
otherness. In my analysis of Troeltsch’s typology in Chap. 4, I described
these strategies as the exclusivist bonding of a homogeneous identity
and the inclusivist bridging of a heterogeneous identity. Because of the
potency of these strategies for the construction of community, Bauman
puts on rubber gloves when he examines community. If engagement with
the other is conceived of as a choice, the otherness of the other is likely
to be neutralized because one is tempted to choose the other who is the
least challenging to one’s ideas and ideologies: like attracts like. Bauman
points out that community runs the risk of totalitarianism through the
neutralization of the other.65 But he concludes: ‘Whatever the quality of
the answers it supplies, the questions which it answers are genuine. The
problem is not how to dismiss the gravity of the questions, but how to find
answers free from totalitarian genres.’66
Like Troeltsch, Bauman draws on the utopia of community for criti-
cal and creative engagement with contemporary society; like Troeltsch,
Bauman traces the historical and cultural development of community in
what could be characterized as three types; and like Troeltsch, Bauman
concludes that none of these types are adequate to contemporary condi-
tions. Troeltsch, too, attempts to find answers free from totalitarian genres
in a critical and creative recombination of the three types of his typology.
64
Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 101–102. See also his Mortality, Immortality and Other Life
Strategies (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992), 131–132.
65
Such totalitarianism has led to criticism—even abandonment—of the concept of com-
munity in ecclesiology. See Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology, 48–52.
66
Bauman, Postmodernity, 185.
140 U. SCHMIEDEL
Through this recombination, Troeltsch asks for the elasticization of com-

munity. Bauman, however, calls for communities of concern to chart ways
beyond the attacks on alterity inherent in ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and
mysticism.
The Community of Concern

Kees de Groot stresses that Bauman’s concept of the ‘community of con-
cern’ ‘has been left out’ of both sociological and theological analyses.67
The community of concern ‘is a concept that belongs to the semantic field
of hope’: Bauman turns from the descriptive to the prescriptive, prob-
ing the opportunities for community construction beyond totalitarian
genres.68 Throughout his writings, the community of concern is never
completely described or conclusively defined. Yet, Bauman hints at what a
community could look like if it would engage internal and external others.
It would be a community rooted in ‘mutual care,’ a ‘concern … for the
equal right to be human.’69
Like Troeltsch, Bauman refrains from the description and definition of
such a community of concern. For him, the difference between the modern
solid modernity and the postmodern liquid modernity entails the ‘with-
drawal of planners’70—a withdrawal which echoes Nicholas M. Healy’s
critique of blueprint ecclesiology as explored in Chap. 4. Under the cur-
rent conditions of what Bauman calls instant and individual gratification,
utopias cannot be planned and programmed.71 In order to challenge the
current context, community concepts have to be ‘heuristic,’72 negatively
pointing to what the utopia is not rather than positively pointing to what
the utopia is. The turn from the positive to the negative responds to the
ambiguities of utopia which can be turned into totalitarian tools to exclude
whoever cannot conform to the plan and the program.73
The core concept for the community of concern is what Bauman calls
‘the stranger.’ Bauman’s attention to the stranger can be traced back to
his writings from the 1950s and 1960s. It is summarized in Culture as
67
De Groot, ‘Three Types,’ 281.
68
Ibid.
69
70
Ibid., 220.
71
See Jacobson, ‘Bauman on Utopia,’ 221.
72
Ibid., 224.
73
Ibid., 226–227.
Praxis.74 Here, the stranger is portrayed as the insider on the outside or

the outsider on the inside. The stranger, then, is always already other.
Because of her location in-between inside and outside, the stranger prob-
lematizes the implicit and explicit assumptions in the practices of a com-
munity.75 The stranger is a ‘category that falls betwixt and between.’76
Bauman stresses that the alterity of the stranger does not authorize the
community to neutralize her through exclusion or inclusion. For Bauman,
neutralization eventually entails attempts to eviscerate the stranger. The
history of Judaism is the eminent example for such attempts. According
to Bauman, the Jews exemplify the casualties of the processes of modern-
ization that are obsessed with clear-cut distinctions between who is an
insider and who is an outsider.77 Through such distinctions, strangers are
displaced, deported and eventually destroyed. And such destructions have
haunted both the past and the present.78
A community of concern is a community of concern for the stranger
who blurs the boundaries between the inside and the outside. Existential
difference is engaged, not neutralized according to anthropoemic or
anthropophagic strategies. In her reflections on the controversies stirred
by Zionism, Judith Butler points out that the stranger is not a matter of
choice.79 She is a given and a gift.80 Unlike the communities of the sectari-
anist ghetto and the mysticist carnival, the community of concern accepts
that it is ‘a condition of social and political life itself’ that a person must
not choose with whom she cohabits.81 The claim to such a choice runs the
risk of genocide.82 But because the stranger might be vile and violent, she
74
Bauman, Culture, 104–112. See Niclas Månsson, ‘Bauman on Strangers – Unwanted
Peculiarities,’ in The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, 155–174.
75
Bauman, Culture, 104–105.
76
Månsson, ‘Bauman on Strangers,’ 159.
77
Ibid., 162–163. See Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust: With a New
Afterword by the Author (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
78
Ibid.
79
See Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2014), 114–180.
80
Judith Butler, ‘Is Judaism Zionism?,’ in The Power of Religion, 70–91 (a reworked ver-
sion of which appeared in Butler, Parting Ways, 114–150). See also her ‘The Charge of
Anti-Semitism,’ in Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (New
York: Verso, 2004), 101–127.
81
Butler, ‘Is Judaism Zionism?,’ 83.
82
See Butler’s insightful interpretation of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A
Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 2006) in the chapter, ‘Quandaries
142 U. SCHMIEDEL
entails both chances and challenges for the construction of community.83

Communities of concern cannot but engage her. For a construction of
community without the absence of alterity, Bauman is thus important and
instructive. But how is attention to alterity practiced?
According to Bauman, one’s relation to the stranger is enabled in the
practice of translation. Translation allows the outsider and the insider to
relate to each other. Interpreting ‘culture’ as ‘praxis,’ Bauman highlights
that cross-cultural translation ‘is a continuous process’ which allows for
‘cohabitation.’84 He argues that through the process of translation both
parties ‘emerge from their encounter changed,’ a continuous change
because translation follows translation.85 The trick of translation is ‘to be
at home in many homes, but to be … inside and outside at the same time,’
combining attachment and detachment in a critical concern for the oth-
er.86 ‘Learning the trick is the chance of the exile.’87 For Bauman (unlike
Jürgen Habermas), there is no Esperanto—religious or non-religious—
which could stop the process of translation.88 Bauman’s sociology speaks
from the exile, the location of the stranger. It is engaged. For him, a ‘non-
committal sociology is an impossibility.’89
of the Plural,’ in Parting Ways, 151–180. According to Butler, Arendt’s point is that Adolf
Eichmann claimed to be entitled to choose with whom to cohabit and with whom not to
cohabit. The choice of cohabitation, the claim to have a say in who is and who is not one’s
neighbor, has genocidal consequences—potentially and actually.
83
Månsson, ‘Bauman on Strangers,’ 167–170.
84
Bauman, Culture, xlviii.
85
Ibid.
86
Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 207.
87
Ibid.
88
Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the translation between religious and non-religious lan-
guages assumes that religious language tends to be private while non-religious language
tends to be public. See Jürgen Habermas, ‘Religion in the Public Sphere,’ in Jürgen
Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2008), 127–150. Accordingly, the secular sphere fulfills a function like the language of
Esperanto. See Habermas’s comments in ‘Concluding Discussion,’ in The Power of Religion,
109–117. However, Charles Taylor asked: ‘Were Martin Luther King’s secular compatriots
unable to understand what he was arguing for when he put the case for equality in biblical
terms?’ (Charles Taylor, ‘Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of Secularism,’ 58n. 13). The
example of Martin Luther King’s speeches runs through their discussion, pointing out how
controversial and contested the boundaries between religious and non-religious ‘language’
are.
89
Bauman, Liquid Modernity, 216.
Bauman anticipates the critique that content might be ‘lost in

translation.’90 He admits that loss is inevitable, but for him such loss is of
no concern. He argues that since one cannot know what is lost in transla-
tion (otherwise it would not be lost), there is no point in worrying about
this loss. Bauman announces: ‘Let us count the gains instead.’91 His poli-
tics of translation is promising for a construction of a community which
engages the internal and the external other because translation blurs the
boundaries between insider and outsider. Hermeneutically, however,
Bauman’s announcement to count the gains of translation might be both
too hasty and too haughty.
Elaborating on intra- and inter-religious encounters, Werner
G. Jeanrond points to philosophical and sociological risks in current the-
ories of translation. Philosophically, theories of translation reject alterity
when they conceive of the content which is ‘lost in translation’ as irrel-
evant.92 While translation is vital for the encounter with religious and non-
religious others, it might be turned into a tool to strip the stranger of
her strangeness.93 Sociologically, theories of translation are—plainly put—
‘too late.’94 The actual or virtual encounter with the other always already
shapes both the insiders and the outsiders of communities which is why
the identities of communities are heterogeneous. It is ultimately unclear
who translates for whom.95 When Bauman advocates theorizing plurality
as a ‘cultural plurality’ instead of a ‘plurality of cultures,’ he inadvertently
interprets the current context as a context in which translation loses its
significance for communication in-between communities.96 Communities
are always already inter-mixed. Hence, attention to the other needs more
than translation.
90
Bauman, Culture, xlvii.
91
Ibid.
92
Werner G. Jeanrond, ‘Towards an Interreligious Hermeneutics of Love,’ in Interreligious
Hermeneutics, ed. Catherine Cornille and Christopher Conway (Eugene, OR: Wipf and
Stock, 2010), 49.
93
Ibid., 48–50.
94
Ibid., 50.
95
Ibid. See also Werner G. Jeanrond, ‘Interkulturalität und Interreligiösität: Die
Notwendigkeit einer Hermeneutik der Liebe,’ in Kontextualität und Universalität: Die
Vielfalt der Glaubenskontexte und der Universalitätsanspruch des Evangeliums, ed. Thomas
Schreijäck and Knut Wenzel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012), 156–173.
96
Bauman, Culture, xlv.
144 U. SCHMIEDEL
Arguably, for Bauman, religions are ‘impotent’ when it comes to the

redirection of attention to the other.97 But while Bauman’s call for a poli-
tics of response and responsibility to the other is well-suited to draw atten-
tion to alterity, I am arguing that the practice of such a politics is in need
of religion. It is not a coincidence that Cain’s response ‘Am I my brother’s
keeper?’ is a response to God. When Bauman refers to Cain’s response,
he neglects the fact that the scene between God and God’s creature high-
lights how the relation to the finite other and the relation to the infinite
other are inextricably interwoven (Genesis 4:1–15). These interrelations
tell a different story—a story to which I will return.98
In conclusion, I have explored Bauman’s conceptions of community,
pointing to the congruence between non-religious and religious com-
munities. Bauman’s sociology offers a fully fledged parallel to Troeltsch’s
tripartite typology. His critique of the core concepts of Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft exposes Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism as a chimera which haunts
the construal of community in both the past and the present. His con-
centration on the other substantiates my analysis of the strategies that
neutralize the other in Troeltsch’s types of sectarianism and of mysticism.
Following Bauman, I have characterized these strategies as the anthropo-
emic exclusion of the other for the bonding of a homogeneous ghetto-
identity and as the anthropophagic inclusion of the other for the bridging
of a heterogeneous carnival-identity. In both attacks on alterity, the other
is instrumentalized in the interest of the identity of community. In order
to sidestep these strategies, Bauman’s concept of a ‘community of con-
cern’ attempts to engage the otherness of the other. His attempt, however,
neglects the question of how alterity challenges the practices of translation.
In the context of ecclesiology, however, this challenge might be
addressed critically and creatively. As mentioned above, in The Social
Teachings of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch concluded that there is no
absolute anchor for Christian community. Nonetheless, in the past and in
the present, Christian communities have offered occasions for trust and
for entrustment to the other. Since Bauman dismisses the resource of reli-
gion, his sociology identifies the problems of individualization, but not
the solutions to the problems of individualization. In order to sketch such
97
Månsson, ‘Bauman on Strangers,’ 170. Alford, ‘Bauman and Levinas,’ 249–262, argues
that Bauman fails to account for the religious roots of Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of the
other when he uses it in his sociology.
98
See Chaps. 7, 8, 9.
solutions, I will return to Troeltsch. His thought might allow for a notion
of the identity of Christianity as concern for the finite other and for the
infinite other. But before I return to Troeltsch, I will analyze how the
attacks on alterity, which I exposed in the ecclesiologies of ecclesiasticism,
sectarianism and mysticism, are appropriated and applied in the sociology
of religion today.
CHAPTER 6
The Promise of Plurality
Three paradigms currently characterize the sociology of religion: secu-

larization, pluralization and individualization.1 A paradigm, as Thomas
S. Kuhn argued in 1962, is a way of perceiving data.2 Data can be perceived
in this way or in that way, but there is no way to perceive them without
a paradigm because the paradigm provides the concepts and the criteria
1
In sociology of religion, different designations are used for these three paradigms. I label
them according to the process which they identify as decisive for the development of religion.
As far as I can ascertain, the distinction of the sociological scene into three paradigms was
first drawn by Detlef Pollack and Gert Pickel. See the comprehensive overview in Gert Pickel,
Religionssoziologie: Eine Einführung in zentrale Themenbereiche (Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag,
2011), 135–226. See also Detlef Pollack, Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos? (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2003); and Detlef Pollack, Rückkehr des Religiösen? (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2009). For empirical explorations, see The Social Significance of Religion in the
Enlarged Europe: Secularization, Individualization and Pluralization, ed. Detlef Pollack,
Olaf Müller and Gert Pickel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012). However, the scene has been
divided differently by Oliver Tschannen, Les Théories de la sécularisation (Genève: Droz,
1992). His account—summarized in ‘The Secularization Paradigm: A Systematization,’
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30/4 (1991), 395–415—distinguishes between
the paradigm of secularization, on the one hand, and the critique of the paradigm of secular-
ization, on the other. I follow Pollack’s and Pickel’s model because Tschannen’s binary dis-
tinction (often overlaid with ‘European’ vs. ‘American’ sociology) mixes the arguments of
secularization theorists and the arguments of individualization theorists into one paradigm.
Thus, even explicit critics of the paradigm of secularization are characterized as its
proponents.
2
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2012). For the concept of paradigm, see esp. the introduction by Ian
Hacking, ibid., xvii–xxv.

148 U. SCHMIEDEL
which are required to make sense of data in the first place. In the para-
digms which characterize the sociology of religion, data—both qualita-
tive–empirical and quantitative–empirical—are perceived to support either
a diagnosis of secularization or a diagnosis of de-secularization. The same
data, then, are perceived in decidedly different ways.3 The consequence
is that the proponents of secularization criticize their opponents for their
concepts and criteria as much as the proponents of de-secularization criti-
cize their opponents for their concepts and criteria. Discussion across par-
adigms can be delicate.
In this chapter, I will apply Ernst Troeltsch’s tripartite typology to the
delicate discussion in the sociology of religion. Again, I employ a three-
step structure: I will examine the concepts and criteria of those sociologists
who perceive empirical data to support a process of secularization—the
paradigm of secularization (in step 1). I will examine the concepts and cri-
teria of those sociologists who perceive empirical data to support a process
of de-secularization—the paradigm of pluralization and the paradigm of
individualization (in step 2). I will argue that these three paradigms take
the concepts of community in Troeltsch’s tripartite typology as criteria for
the evaluation of the development of religion: secularization is rooted in
Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism; pluralization is rooted in Troeltsch’s sectarian-
ism and individualization is rooted in Troeltsch’s mysticism. Considering
that the Troeltschian types construe community through the neutraliza-
tion of alterity, I will continue to argue that the defenders and the despis-
ers of secularization share a common concern—namely that alterity is a
threat to religion, a threat which is to be neutralized through anthropo-
emic exclusion or anthropophagic inclusion of the other. Finally, I will
turn to the sociological study of plurality (in step 3). Plurality is the cipher
through which sociologists discuss the issue and the impact of alterity on
religion. Exploring influential interpretations of plurality in the sociology
of religion, I will argue that alterity is not the problem but the solution to
the problem of religion in modernity. Plurality is a promise rather than a
problem for religion in modernized and modernizing contexts.
3
The controversies stirred by the definition of religion excellently exemplify these differ-
ences. In the sociology of religion, representatives of a substantial definition of religion (as
utilized in the paradigm of secularization) and representatives of a functional definition of
religion (as utilized in the paradigm of individualization) are to be distinguished from repre-
sentatives which combine elements of both definitions (as utilized in the paradigm of plural-
ization). See Pickel, Religionssoziologie, 218–221, esp. the concise chart ibid., 218. Hence,
the paradigms prefigure what can and what cannot count as religion.
THE PROMISE OF PLURALITY 149
My application of Troeltsch’s typology to the sociology of religion

comes with caveats. Since I am concerned with Christianity, I focus on
the references to Christian rather than non-Christian religions in the
three paradigms. Yet even with the focus on Christianity, the reference to
‘the’ paradigm of secularization, ‘the’ paradigm of pluralization, and ‘the’
paradigm of individualization is simplifying: different theorists accentuate
different theories differently. I have chosen Steve Bruce’s account of the
paradigm of secularization, Laurence Iannaccone’s account of the para-
digm of pluralization, and Grace Davie’s account of the paradigm of indi-
vidualization. These three theorists are promising for my application of
Troeltsch’s typology to the sociology of religion, because they concentrate
on the concept of community. Their concentration can be traced back to
the discussion of Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone.
Putnam’s study of the collapse of community caused considerable con-
troversy in the sociology of religion. Essentially, he argued that communi-
ties, both religious and non-religious, are collapsing because the impact of
mass media on modernized and modernizing societies increasingly inhibits
face-to-face encounters.4 Putnam’s study was instantly integrated into the
sociological paradigms, where it was interpreted either as support for the
paradigm of secularization or as support for the paradigms of de-secular-
ization.5 Although ‘community’ was thus recognized as a core category
in the sociology of religion, the instant integration of Putnam’s argument
into the three paradigms prevented sociologists from rethinking them.
Accordingly, I will explore the concepts of community implied in the three
paradigms, concentrating on their accounts of the development of religion
in Europe.6 Troeltsch’s tripartite typology is instructive for my exploration.
4
Putnam, Bowling Alone, 277–287.
5
See the articles by Steve Bruce, ‘Praying Alone? Church-Going in Britain and the Putnam
Thesis’; by Grace Davie, ‘Praying Alone? Church-Going in Britain and Social Capital: A
Reply to Steve Bruce’; and by Robin Gill, ‘A Response to Steve Bruce’s Praying Alone?’ all
of which appeared in Journal for Contemporary Religion 17/3 (2002), 317–328, 329–334
and 335–338. See also the succinct summary in Pickel, Religionssoziologie, 301–307.
6
I concentrate on Europe to allow for comparisons with Troeltsch’s account of the devel-
opment of religion. However, the issue of ‘exceptionalism’ is of interest to the sociology of
religion. The despisers of the paradigm of secularization argue that the European develop-
ment of religion is exceptional, while the defenders of the paradigm of secularization argue
that the American development of religion is exceptional. See Grace Davie, Europe: The
Exceptional Case. Parameters of Faith in the Modern World (Darton: Longman and Todd,
2002). However, as José Casanova pointedly puts it, ‘When it comes to religion, there is no
global rule,’ José Casanova, ‘Rethinking Secularization,’ The Hedgehog Review Spring/
150 U. SCHMIEDEL
It opens up the delicate discussion between the paradigms of seculariza-

tion, pluralization and individualization.
The Diagnosis of Secularization

Steve Bruce summarizes the paradigm of secularization as follows: ‘[I]t is
assumed that all right thinking people are against it.’7 Nonetheless, Bruce
(right-thinking or not right-thinking) defends the paradigm against its
despisers.8 Although his seminal study, God is Dead,9 might sound like a
slogan for secularity or secularism, he stresses that the paradigm of secu-
larization it depicts has to be distinguished from the propagation of secu-
larism.10 The historical–cultural process of secularization differs from the
historical–cultural point of secularity and from the historical–cultural poli-
tics of secularism. And the paradigm of secularization examines the process
of secularization. It explains why religion loses significance.11 However,
in order to measure the loss of significance, the paradigm requires a cri-
terion. I will argue that the paradigm of secularization takes the concept
of community which Troeltsch describes as ecclesiasticism as a criterion to
distinguish between increases and decreases in the significance of religion.
The paradigm of secularization plots the process of secularization on
macro-, meso- and micro-sociological levels.12 On all three levels, secu-
larization is considered a process of modernization: the more modern a
society is, the more secular it is; and the more secular a society is, the
more modern it is. According to Bruce, the Reformation is crucial.13 By
Summer (2006), 17; see also his ‘Beyond European and American Exceptionalism: Towards
a Global Perspective,’ in Predicting Religion: Christian, Secular and Alternative Futures, ed.
Grace Davie, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 17–29.
7
Steve Bruce, ‘What the Secularization Paradigm Really Says,’ in Religiosität in der säku-
larisierten Welt: Theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Säkularisierungsdebatte in der
Religionssoziologie, ed. Manuel Franzman, Christel Gärtner and Nicole Köck (Wiesbaden:
VS-Verlag, 2006), 39.
8
Bruce, Secularization, where Bruce takes on the paradigm of pluralization (ibid.,
141–176) and the paradigm of individualization (ibid., 79–99).
9
Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
10
Ibid., 38–39.
11
Bruce, Secularization, 1–4.
12
Karel Dobbelaere, Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels (Brussels: Peter Lang,
2002), introduced the distinction between macro-, meso- and micro-sociological seculariza-
tions. See also his summary, ‘Towards an Integrated Perspective of the Processes Related to
the Descriptive Concept of Secularization,’ Sociology of Religion 60/3 (1999), 229–247.
13
Steve Bruce, Religion in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 4–7.
dissolving Christianity into Christianities, it instigated or invigorated the

processes of differentiation, pluralization and individualization.14
On the macro-sociological level, the Reformation caused society to
draw a distinction between religious and non-religious realms, where the
religious realm fulfills religious functions and the non-religious realm ful-
fills non-religious functions. Originally, the aim of the functional differ-
entiation was to avoid war between the defenders of Protestantism and
Catholicism. Differentiation kept religion out of politics and politics out
of religion.15 But the process assumed a life of its own, differentiating
a variety of societal subsystems such as education or economy from the
influx of religion. The consequence of the process of differentiation is that
Christianity loses control over society—a loss which could be character-
ized either negatively as ‘extrusion’ or positively as ‘emancipation.’
On the meso-sociological level, the Reformation caused the pluraliza-
tion of Christianity. But if there are two Christianities, the adherents of
this one condemning the adherents of that one to hell, Christianity loses
plausibility. It becomes both disputable and disputed.16 Bruce argues that
the ‘loss of state support,’ on the one hand, and the ‘loss of social support,’
on the other, are corollaries of the pluralization of Christianity.17 Thus, the
shift from the indisputable status to the disputable status is important for
the process of secularization: while religions in a mono-religious context
can continuously confirm their systems of beliefs and behaviors, religions
in a multi-religious context cannot—which ultimately ‘calls into question
the certainty that believers can accord their religion.’18
14
On Bruce’s account, the processes of pluralization and individualization are rooted in
the process of differentiation. See his ‘Secularization Paradigm,’ 39–41. See also Pickel,
Religionssoziologie, 164–172.
15
Matthias Pohlig, ‘Religionsfrieden als pax politica: Zum Verhältnis von Religion und
Politik im konfessionellen Zeitalter,’ in Umstrittene Säkularisierung: Soziologische und histo-
rische Analysen zur Differenzierung von Religion und Politik, ed. Karl Gabriel, Christel
Gärtner and Detlef Pollack (Berlin: Berlin University Press, 2012), 225–241, points out that
the promotion of peace is a crucial cause for the process of differentiation, although, histori-
cally, it is unclear who concluded when and why that religion ought not to be considered a
cause of war anymore.
16
The shift from a non-disputable to a disputable status is vital to Peter L. Berger’s theo-
rization of the process of pluralization as secularizing and as de-secularizing. Berger’s theo-
ries will be discussed in detail later in this chapter.
17
Bruce, ‘Secularization Paradigm,’ 41.
18
Bruce, God is Dead, 17.
152 U. SCHMIEDEL
On the micro-sociological level, the Reformation caused the individu-

alization of Christianity. Bruce argues that the Reformers prioritized per-
sonal religion over communal religion; amplified by the Enlightenment,
these priorities distorted the tradition and disrupted the transmission of
Christianity.19 He explains the ‘impotence’ of religion which follows from
the individualization of religion when he argues that parents who ‘believe
that their children will go to hell if they do not follow in the one true
way work extremely hard to socialize their children in the faith.’20 Yet
once ‘the one true way’ is individualized, even parents ‘with an active
faith continue with it till they die but each generation fails to recruit its
children at the rate required to remain stable.’21 Eventually, the system of
beliefs and behaviors is so disintegrated that it cannot be transmitted from
generation to generation—‘fuzzy fidelity.’22 Nonetheless, Bruce balks at
the prognosis that secularization will end in the point of secularity or in
the politics of secularism.23 Because of counter-trends in which religions
such as Christianity are utilized to invigorate identity, it is more likely that
remnants of religion survive in secularized and secularizing societies.24
The paradigm of secularization, then, plots a process which leads from
the past significance of religion to the present insignificance of religion.
Before the Reformation, Bruce argues, Christianity was thriving through-
out Europe.25 He portrays Christianity in the Corpus Christianum through
concepts which resonate with Troeltsch’s ecclesiasticism: Christianity is
‘co-extensive’ with both the religious and the non-religious realm26; its
‘authoritative world-view’ connects church and culture27; and the connec-
tion between church and culture is objective rather than subjective—which
is to say, it is independent of believers and nonbelievers.28 With recourse to
19
Steve Bruce, ‘Secularization and the Impotence of Individualized Religion,’ The
Hedgehog Review Spring/Summer 2006, 35–45.
20
21
Ibid.
22
Bruce, Secularization, 21–22, draws on David Voas, ‘The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity
in Europe,’ European Sociological Review 25/2 (2009), 155–168.
23
Bruce, God is Dead, 41–43.
24
Ibid., 30–36, where Bruce explains counter-secularizing trends in which religion is used
to invigorate personal or communal constructions of identity.
25
Bruce, Religion in Modern Britain, 1.
26
27
Ibid.
28
Bruce, Religion in Modern Britain, 1–28.
Troeltsch’s tripartite typology, Bruce summarizes secularization as a pro-

cess which turns Christianity ‘from cathedrals to cults.’29 Hence, present
and pluralized religion is ‘parasitic’ on past and non-pluralized religion.30
I am arguing that the criterion with which the paradigm of seculariza-
tion measures the development of religion is Troeltschian ecclesiasticism:
whatever does not conform to ecclesiasticism is seen as secularizing and
whatever does conform to ecclesiasticism is seen as de-secularizing. But
for Troeltsch, ecclesiasticism was a matter of principle rather than a mat-
ter of practice. Ecclesiasticism (as I explained in Chaps. 4 and 5) comes
close to Bauman’s chimera of community: it is a romanticization of the
Corpus Christianum. Incidentally, the idealization of ecclesiasticism can
be traced back to the Romantic Novalis who already argued that ‘with
the Reformation Christianity was done for.’31 Against the romanticiza-
tion of religion, Troeltsch stresses that both sectarianism and mysticism
belie the ‘death certificates’ which have been issued for Christianity since
the Reformation.32 His account of the Reformation is much more subtle
and much more specific than is acknowledged in the interpretation of the
Reformation as the point of departure for secularization.33
To the outrage of past and present theologians,34 Troeltsch character-
izes the Reformation as ‘a modification of Catholicism,’ countering the
narratives which plot it as a radical rupture toward modernity35—narratives
which entail either an uncritically negative assessment or an uncritically
positive assessment of the Reformation, depending on the narrator’s view
of modernity. For Troeltsch, whose account is confirmed by Charles Taylor,
the central ecclesiological concepts of both Protestantism and Catholicism
29
Steve Bruce, Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults (Oxford: Oxford
30
Steve Bruce, ‘The Problems of Liberal Religion: A Sociologist’s View,’ in The Future of
Liberal Theology, 239 (my emphasis).
31
Novalis, ‘Christianity or Europe: A Fragment,’ in The Early Political Writings of the
German Romantics, ed. Frederick C. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 67. For a succinct summary, see Lauster, Die Verzauberung, 474–476.
32
EM, 263, translation altered. See WM, 327.
33
Lori Pearson, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and Contemporary Discourses of Secularization,’ Journal
for the History of Modern Theology 19/2 (2012), 173–192.
34
See Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, ‘Einleitung,’ in HP, 12–13.
35
PP, 41: ‘The point of primary importance is that, historically and theologically regarded,
Protestantism … was, in the first place, simply a modification of Catholicism, in which the
Catholic formulation of the problems was retained, while a different answer was given to
them.’ In German, Troeltsch refers to ‘Umbildung’ (BP, 32).
154 U. SCHMIEDEL
are ecclesiasticist.36 Thus, Troeltsch distinguishes pre- Enlightenment

Protestantism from post-Enlightenment Protestantism to point out that
the Enlightenment instigated the processes of modernization.37 Hence,
Protestantism requires the Enlightenment for its modernization.
According to what Hans Joas terms the ‘Troeltsch thesis,’ the turn from
objective religion to subjective religion is what the Reformation contrib-
uted to the processes of modernization.38 But this turn—Joas character-
izes it as a ‘religious’ rather than a ‘non-religious’ ‘individualization’39—is
neither the cause nor the consequence of secularization. For Troeltsch, the
Reformation has not caused the end of Christianity. He argues that the
movements of sectarianism and mysticism were part and parcel of eccle-
siasticism.40 While the comprehensive church of the Corpus Christianum
confined sectarianist and mysticist tendencies, the turn from the objective
to the subjective released these tendencies from the church’s confinement.
It triggered the emancipation of the sectarianist and the mysticist move-
ment from the comprehensive church of ecclesiasticism. Hence, according
to Troeltsch, the Reformation implies changes in the conditions for the
construction of community.41
Troeltsch traces these changes back to the core characteristic of the
Reformation which he finds in Martin Luther’s concept of grace.42 Luther
turned grace from the externally objective to the internally subjective.43
Grace is thus not found in relation to God’s church, but in relation to
36
Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today, 72; A Secular Age, 449.
37
The distinction between pre-Enlightenment Protestantism (Altprotestantismus) and
post-Enlightenment Protestantism (Neuprotestantismus) is essentially ecclesiological: pre-
Enlightenment Protestantism cannot accept a secular state, post-Enlightenment Protestantism
can. See PP, 34–40, 87–101.
38
Hans Joas, Glaube als Option: Zukunftsmöglichkeiten des Christentums (Freiburg: Herder,
2012), 91, ET: Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity, trans. Alex Skinner
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 53.
39
Ibid. To recall, Troeltsch distinguishes between a religious and a non-religious process
of individualization: the religious one comes with, while the non-religious one comes with-
out, a connection to community.
40
SL, 230–231.
41
The fact that the Reformation changed the conditions for the construction of commu-
nity is reflected by Haight’s Christian Community in History. His account of the Reformation
shifts the methodology of his history of ecclesiology from ‘Historical Ecclesiology’ in vol. 1
to ‘Comparative Ecclesiology’ in vol. 2.
42
SL, 431, 436–437.
43
SL, 437–438.
God.44 For Troeltsch, Luther retrieves the practice of Jesus for the recon-
struction of church.45 The turn to the transcendent, which (as argued
above in Chap. 4) characterizes the practice of Jesus, engenders relations
to both the finite other and the infinite other.46 Luther’s return to Jesus,
then, implies not the replacement of church, but the reform of church:
the ‘re-transformation (Zurückverwandlung)’ of what could be called
a ‘Christianity of Church’ into what could be called a ‘Christianity of
Christ.’47 What the individualization of the Troeltsch thesis implies, then,
is that Luther returns to the interrelation of the relation to the finite other
with the relation to the infinite other—a return ‘which does not mean that
he gives up the idea of a universal church.’48
To summarize, Bruce’s paradigm of secularization is propagating nei-
ther secularity nor secularism.49 It measures how religion loses significance
in a process of secularization. But the measurement is rooted in the cri-
terion of ecclesiasticism: what does not correspond to ecclesiasticism is
seen as secularizing, what does correspond to ecclesiasticism is seen as
de-secularizing. As a consequence, Bruce takes the Reformation as a point
of departure to plot the process of secularization. For Troeltsch, how-
ever, ecclesiasticism is complemented and countered by the movements
of sectarianism and mysticism throughout history. Why, then, should the
development of religion be measured with the criterion of ecclesiasticism?
The Diagnosis of De-Secularization

Troeltsch’s account of the adaptability of Christianity prevented him from
the conceptualization of a fully fledged theory of secularization (which
permeated much of the research of his contemporaries). For Troeltsch,
both sectarianism and mysticism demonstrate how Christianity has reacted
to the changed and changing conditions for constructing community after
44
SL, 440.
45
Ibid. For Troeltsch, Martin Luther represents one of the historical ‘hubs (Knotenpunkte)’
(SL, 211) in which the religious realm changed the non-religious realm. See also NR, 212;
SL, 432–433.
46
SL, 441.
47
SL, 450.
48
Haight, Christian Community in History, vol. 2: ‘Comparative Ecclesiology,’ 65. See
also the detailed discussion of Luther’s ecclesiology in ibid., 13–69.
49
Bruce’s account of the paradigm of secularization is typical for the current concepts of
secularization in sociology of religion. Historically, however, sociologists have claimed to
emancipate society from Christianity, a prescriptive rather than a descriptive claim which can
be traced back to Auguste Comte.
156 U. SCHMIEDEL
the Enlightenment. I will argue that the critique of the paradigm of secu-
larization resonates with Troeltsch’s typology: in the paradigm of plural-
ization, sectarianism is taken as a criterion to measure the development
of religion; in the paradigm of individualization, mysticism is taken as a
criterion to measure the development of religion.
The process of differentiation is assumed by the defenders and the
despisers of the paradigm of secularization alike.50 Hence, the differentia-
tion of religious and non-religious realms has been unanimously accepted
as a central condition for religion in modernized and modernizing societies
by all the paradigms which characterize the sociology of religion today.51
The differences between the paradigms of secularization, pluralization and
individualization, then, are not located on the macro-sociological level.
Rather, both the meso- and micro-sociological conclusions which are
drawn from the process of functional differentiation are stirring contro-
versy. I will examine the paradigm of pluralization and the paradigm of
individualization in turn in order to explore these controversies.
Pluralization
The paradigm of pluralization takes ‘commodification’ and ‘competi-
tion’ as its core categories.52 For Laurence Iannaccone, religion is a com-
modity—a commodity which is examined through economics: ‘Voodoo
Economics,’ as he puts it.53 Taken together, the production and the con-
sumption of the commodity of religion form a ‘religious market that—like
50
See Philip S. Gorski, ‘Historicizing the Secularization Debate: Church, State and Society
in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe ca. 1300 to 1700,’ American Sociological Review
65 (2000), 138–167, who conceives of differentiation as the core category of both the para-
digm of secularization and the paradigm of pluralization. He argues that both paradigms
could be combined. See also Philip S. Gorski, ‘Historicizing the Secularization Debate: An
Agenda for Research,’ Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. Michele Dillon (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 110–122. Gorski works with a binary model which
molds the paradigm of individualization into the paradigm of secularization.
51
Joas problematizes the concept of differentiation. In ‘Gefährliche Prozessbegriffe: Eine
Warnung vor der Rede von Differenzierung, Rationalisierung und Modernisierung,’ in
Umstrittene Säkularisierung, 603–622, he points out that the concept implies a secularism
which confines religion to a religious as opposed to a non-religious sphere. Religion claims
relevance in each and every sphere. Joas calls for a historicization of the concept of differen-
tiation in order to expose it to alternatives. See also Joas, Faith as an Option, 67–72.
52
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘The Consequences of Religious Market Structure: Adam Smith
and the Economics of Religion,’ Rationality and Society 3 (1991), 158.
53
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Voodoo Economics: Reviewing the Rational Choice Approach to
Religion,’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34 (1995), 76–88.
other markets—tends towards a steady-state equilibrium.’54 Competition

triggers the vitality of those religions which are traded on the market
because it forces producers to create and cultivate products which are
desired by consumers. Through these products, the consumers’ religion
is invigorated or even instigated.55 Accordingly, the paradigm of plural-
ization plots a story in which the consequences of pluralization are de-
secularizing rather than secularizing.
On the macro-sociological level, the comprehensive church of the
Corpus Christianum is interpreted as a curse to religion. A pioneer of
the paradigm of pluralization, Rodney Stark, puts it the following way:
‘Everyone “knows” that once upon a time the world was pious … But,
like so many once-upon-a-time tales, this conception of a pious past is
mere nostalgia.’56 Stark argues that ecclesiasticism settled for conformity
without conversion.57 But the Reformation provoked the church to con-
vert Christians to either this Christianity or that Christianity. Thus, the
Reformation slowly but surely created a market of religions.58
The significance of the market is seen on the meso-sociological level.
Iannaccone assumes that the demand for religion has remained constant
throughout history.59 But whether the demand is or is not actualized
depends on the intensity of the competition on the market of religions.
It is the task of the producers to turn it from a potential into a potent
demand: producers stimulate the desire of consumers in order to satisfy it
through their products. Freed from regulation, the market plies a plurality
of producers and products, creating competition.60 Competition between
producers allows the market to provoke both the stimulation and the satis-
faction of demand.61 Therefore, Iannaccone argues, the European market
54
Ibid., 77. See also Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Religious Markets and the Economics of
Religion,’ Social Compass 39 (1992), 123–131.
55
Because of its concentration on the supply-side, the paradigm of pluralization is repeat-
edly referred to as ‘supply-side approach.’ See Pickel, Religionssoziologie, 198–217.
56
Rodney Stark, ‘Secularization R. I. P.,’ Sociology of Religion 60/3 (1999), 255.
57
Ibid., 260. See Iannaccone, ‘Voodoo Economics,’ 84–85.
58
See the critique by Bruce, God is Dead, 45–59.
59
Iannaccone, ‘Voodoo Economics,’ 77.
60
See Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone, ‘A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the
“Secularization” of Europe,’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 33/3 (1994), 232.
Here, Rodney Stark modifies his theory of religion which initially assumed that markets tend
toward monopolization. See William S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, A Theory of Religion
(New York: Peter Lang, 1987).
61
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Religious Practice: A Human Capital Approach,’ Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, 29/3 (1990), 297–314.
158 U. SCHMIEDEL
(characterized by states regulating churches) leads to the devitalization of

religion, whereas the American market (characterized by states not regu-
lating churches) leads to the vitalization of religion.62 The paradigm of
pluralization, then, implies the application of ‘liberal’ or ‘neoliberal’ eco-
nomics to the sociology of religion63—which is to say: regulation inhibits
competition, deregulation invigorates competition.64
On the micro-sociological level, the economic analysis of religion results
in the emphasis on ‘exchange’ between the creature and the creator which
is interpreted as the core to the practice of religion: the created ‘customer’
offers to the creator and the creator offers to the created ‘customer’: do
ut des.65 Both ‘sacrifice and stigma’ are accepted in the exchange in which
the customer aims for eschatological compensation.66 The choice of the
customer is vital.67 If there is no choice, the producers of religion become
more and more indifferent to the desires of their customers which is why
the customers turn their backs to the product of religion, sliding from
what is religious to what is non-religious.
The paradigm of pluralization, then, turns the paradigm of secular-
ization inside-out. Since the process of pluralization is a condition for
competition, the paradigm announces not the death of religion, but the
death of the death of religion: ‘Secularization R. I. P.’68 However, like the
paradigm of secularization, the paradigm of pluralization requires a cri-
terion to measure de-secularization. What is the criterion with which the
paradigm of pluralization works?
In critical conversation with Troeltsch, Iannaccone examined the sig-
nificance of community for the paradigm of pluralization.69 As his answers
62
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Extremism and the Economics of Religion,’ The Economic Record
88 (2012), 111.
63
Iannaccone traces his approach back to Adam Smith. See Iannaccone, ‘The
Consequences,’ 156–177.
64
See the empirical explorations by Stark and Iannaccone, ‘A Supply-Side Reinterpretation
of the “Secularization” of Europe’; and by Laurence Iannaccone, Roger Finke and Rodney
Stark, ‘Deregulating Religion,’ Economic Inquiry 35/2 (1997), 350–364.
65
Laurence Iannaccone, Colleen Haight and Jared Rubin, ‘Lessons from Delphi: Religious
Markets and Spiritual Capitals,’ Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 77/3
(2011), 326–338.
66
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-Riding in Cults, Communes
and Other Collectives,’ Journal of Political Economy 100/2 (1992), 271–291.
67
Iannaccone, ‘Voodoo Economics,’ 77.
68
Stark, ‘Secularization R. I. P.’. See also the contributions to The Oxford Handbook of the
Economics of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ed. Rachel M. McCleary,
esp. the editor’s introduction, ‘The Economics of Religion as a Field of Enquiry,’ 3–38.
69
See Laurence Iannaccone, ‘A Formal Model of Church and Sect,’ American Journal of
Sociology 94 (1988), 241–268, where he attempts to replace the typology of ecclesiasticism
to ‘Why strict churches are strong?’ suggest, the paradigm is rooted in a

community which separates insiders and outsiders in order to invigorate
competition.70 To explain the success of the strict church, Iannaccone dis-
tinguishes between religious and non-religious commodities. Following
religious norms, a consumer can earn religious commodities; following
non-religious norms, a consumer can earn non-religious commodities.71
However, if these norms are non-identical, the consumer faces a ‘trade-
off’: investing here implies loss there and investing there implies loss
here.72 In the consumer’s trade-off, churches with a clear-cut inside–out-
side distinction ‘outcompete’ churches without a clear-cut inside–outside
distinction because a separation of insiders and outsiders screens out ‘free-
riders.’ Free-riders are those who gain from the collective commodity of
religion without giving to the collective commodity of religion.73 If these
free-riders were let into the community, the commodity would lose value.
Hence, the demand for sacrifice and stigma which belongs to sectarian-
ism rather than ecclesiasticism is what makes the strict church strong.74
Thus, I am arguing that the criterion with which the paradigm of plural-
ization measures the development of religion is Troeltschian sectarian-
ism75: whatever does not conform to sectarianism is seen as secularizing
and whatever does conform to sectarianism is seen as de-secularizing.76
and mysticism with a theory of ecclesiasticism and sectarianism.

70
Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Why Strict Churches are Strong,’ American Journal of Sociology
99 (1994), 1180–1211. See also the response to his critics, Laurence Iannaccone, ‘Strictness
and Strength Revisited,’ American Journal of Sociology 101 (1996), 1103–1108.
71
Iannaccone, ‘Why Strict Churches are Strong,’ 1183–1184.
72
Iannaccone, ‘A Formal Model,’ 249.
73
Iannaccone, ‘Why Strict Churches are Strong,’ 1186–1188. See also Iannaccone,
‘Sacrifice and Stigma,’ 271–291.
74
Iannaccone, ‘Extremism and the Economics of Religion,’ 113.
75
Iannaccone also allows for the notion of mysticism which he, expectedly, explains eco-
nomically. Because ‘religions are risky,’ ‘“religious investors” will be tempted to diversify
their own religious portfolios, devoting their time and money to a variety of different reli-
gions.’ For him, sectarianism is a predominantly ‘Western’ type of religion, while mysticism
is a predominantly ‘Eastern’ type of religion. Iannaccone, ‘Voodoo Economics,’ 81.
However, for the paradigm of pluralization, sectarianism is crucial.
76
In as much as ecclesiasticism and sectarianism might be characterized as type and anti-
type, the paradigm of secularization and the paradigm of pluralization might be character-
ized as paradigm and counter-paradigm. See the comprehensive critique by Steve Bruce,
Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999). For Bruce, the shift from ecclesiasticism to sectarianism is not sidestepping seculariza-
tion. Instead, it is a step within the process of secularization.
160 U. SCHMIEDEL
Individualization
The paradigm of individualization rests on Thomas Luckmann’s critique
of the paradigm of secularization. In The Invisible Religion, Luckmann
argues that the paradigm of secularization identifies religion with the insti-
tutional rather than the individual manifestations of religion—which is
to say, with churches.77 However, the process of individualization, which
is part and parcel of modernization, makes institutions increasingly irrel-
evant: with the advent of modernity, the subject is deprived or relieved
(depending on one’s point of view) of institutional norms. When individu-
alization hits religion, it is not the individual religion but the institutional
religion which loses significance.78
Accordingly, the paradigm of individualization aims to analyze a ‘meta-
morphosis’ or a ‘mutation’ of religion from the public to the private which
makes religion invisible to the sociologist who looks for it in churches.
Luckmann admits that the individualization of religion shrinks experi-
ences of the transcendent from a maximum to a minimum,79 which is
why his study is interpreted from time to time as a conception rather than
a critique of secularization.80 Luckmann, however, would criticize such
interpretations. For him, secularization is ‘a modern myth.’81
Drawing on Luckmann,82 Grace Davie has adopted and adapted the dis-
tinction between individual religion and institutional religion. She agrees
77
Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion.
78
According to the characterization of the experience of transcendence which I articulated
in Chaps. 1, 2 and 3, the (Jamesian) distinction Luckmann draws between individual and
institutional religion is dubious.
79
See the typology of transcendences in Luckmann, Die Unsichtbare Religion, 166–171.
See also Thomas Luckmann, ‘Shrinking Transcendence – Expanding Religion?,’ Sociological
Analysis 51/2 (1990), 127–138.
80
José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 35–37, argues that Luckmann ‘radicalizes’ the theory of seculariza-
tion. Casanova is interested in the de-privatization rather than the privatization of religion.
For his convincing critique of Luckmann, it is irrelevant whether Luckmann’s concept of the
turn of religion from the public to the private is or is not characterized as secularization. See
also Casanova, ‘Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective,’ 18–19,
where he argues that his concept of de-privatization holds for the macro- and the meso-
sociological level, while Luckmann’s concept of privatization holds for the micro-sociological
level.
81
Thomas Luckmann, ‘Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos,’ in Lebenswelt und
Gesellschaft: Grundstrukturen und geschichtliche Wandlungen (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1980),
161–172. See also the critique by Pollack, Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos?.
82
For Davie’s assessment of Luckmann, see her entries ‘Luckmann, Thomas’ and ‘Invisible
Religion’ in Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, ed. William H. Swatos, Jr. (London: Sage,
with the proponents of the paradigm of secularization and the proponents

of the paradigm of pluralization in her analysis of the macro-sociological
level. Yet, she argues that the functional differentiation of society into reli-
gious and non-religious realms inspired a mutation of religion on meso- and
micro-sociological levels. What follows from the mutation are ‘two religious
economies’83 which could be characterized with the slogans of ‘believing
without belonging’ and ‘belonging without believing.’ For Davie, the com-
bination of these economies points to the ‘persistent paradox’ of religion.84
With ‘believing without belonging,’ Davie argues that the connec-
tion between one’s religious believing and one’s religious belonging is
not as clear-cut as the paradigm of secularization assumes. Accordingly, a
loss of belonging is not necessarily a loss of believing.85 Here, she effec-
tively restates Luckmann’s argument. Drawing on empirical explorations
in the United Kingdom, Davie points to persons who would claim to
have had experiences of transcendence. These persons might or might
not attend church: religion can be lived both inside and outside church-
es.86 Davie goes so far as to argue that, empirically, believing and belong-
ing are not proportionally but anti-proportionally related—the more one
believes, the less one belongs and the more one belongs, the less one
believes.87 However, in response to critique,88 she retracted from her strik-
ingly strong statement, admitting that the correlation between increase
in believing and decrease in belonging holds for what she calls ‘creedal
religion endorsed by the churches.’89 For religions which are not endorsed
by the churches, however, she admits ‘I am much less sure.’90
With ‘belonging without believing,’ Davie argues for the significance of
what she calls ‘vicarious religion.’91 The concept captures the crucial con-
1998), 275–276 and 238–239. See also Davie, The Sociology of Religion, 38, 53–54.
83
Grace Davie, ‘Religion in Europe in the 21st Century: The Factors to Take into
Account,’ European Journal of Sociology 47/2 (2006), 293.
84
For a summary, see Grace Davie, Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (Chichester:
Blackwell, 2015), 71–90.
85
Grace Davie, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1994).
86
Ibid., 83.
87
See Davie, Europe, 8.
88
See Pollack, Rückkehr des Religiösen?, 45–46.
89
Davie ‘Religion in Europe,’ 276.
90
Ibid. In ‘Let Theology and Sociology Interact!,’ Ecclesiology 10 (2014), 362–371, Davie
goes even further: ‘I have moved away from the notion of “believing without belonging” as
an organizing principle, favouring instead the idea of “vicarious religion”’ (ibid., 364).
91
Strictly speaking, Davie does not use the slogan ‘belonging without believing.’ It was
coined by her colleague and companion, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, ‘Religion und sozialer
Zusammenhalt in Europa,’ Transit: Europäische Revue 26 (2004), 101–119.
162 U. SCHMIEDEL
nection between the enthusiastically believing minority inside churches

(not necessarily clerical) and the less enthusiastically believing majority
outside churches (not necessarily non-clerical) in a society.92 By practicing
religion in churches, the minority keeps religion on life support for the
majority. Hence, the minority is interpreted to believe ‘on behalf of’ the
majority.93 The majority approves of the life support through the minority.
Their approval is what Davie calls ‘vicarious religion’: the majority believes
vicariously through the minority.
The paradigm of individualization, then, turns the paradigm of secular-
ization inside-out. Modernization is not secularizing but individualizing
religion. Religion mutates: it is found outside rather than inside institu-
tions. Nonetheless, churches are still significant: in the background of both
believers and nonbelievers, they keep Christianity alive. However, like the
paradigm of secularization, the paradigm of individualization requires a
criterion to diagnose de-secularization. What is the criterion with which
the paradigm of individualization works?
Although Davie has not elaborated on Troeltsch’s tripartite typology,94
her characterization of communities which keep religion alive comes close
to Troeltsch’s mysticism. These communities, Davie argues, emerge from
time to time because the coincidence of believing and belonging is not
continuous. To create sporadic coincidences of believing and belonging,
Davie contends, communities have to concentrate on ‘experiential’ reli-
gion.95 With ‘experience,’ she loosely labels emotional events in which
92
Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 59–60.
93
Davie, ‘Religion in Europe,’ 277. The critics of the concept argue that it is applicable to
the integrated culture of the past, but not to the disintegrated culture of the present. See
Steve Bruce and David Voas, ‘Vicarious Religion: An Examination and Critique,’ Journal of
Contemporary Religion 25/2 (2010), 243–259. See also the rejoinder by Grace Davie,
‘Vicarious Religion: A Response,’ Journal of Contemporary Religion 25/2 (2010), 261–266.
94
However, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, ‘Individualism, the Validation of Faith, and the Social
Nature of Religion in Modernity,’ in The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, ed.
Richard K. Fenn (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 161–175, distinguishes three types of religious
validation which she connects to Troeltsch’s typology in order to assess the contemporary
de-institutionalization of religion.
95
Grace Davie, ‘Belief and Unbelief: Two Sides of a Coin,’ Approaching Religion 2/1
(2012), 5. For the significance of experience, see also Davie, Religion in Britain: A Persistent
Paradox, 20, 164, 168.
‘the abnormal becomes normal.’96 These experiences are vital for both
economies of religion, ‘believing without belonging’ and ‘belonging with-
out believing,’ because they create appreciation for community. The com-
munity, then, revolves around experiences without compulsory forms of
expression. It revolves around what Davie calls ‘the “feel-good” factor.’97
Seeking what feels good, one can choose this community today and that
community tomorrow which is why the boundaries between the insiders
and the outsiders of the community are blurred.98 Thus, I am arguing
that the criterion with which the paradigm of individualization measures
the development of religion is Troeltschian mysticism: whatever does not
conform to mysticism is seen as secularizing and whatever does conform
to mysticism is seen as de-secularizing.
To summarize, I have examined how the development of religion is
measured in the three paradigms which currently characterize the sociol-
ogy of religion: secularization, pluralization and individualization. Like
any measurement, the measurement of religion requires a criterion which
determines when religion is developing positively (which is to say, when
it is thriving) and when religion is developing negatively (which is to say,
when it is not thriving). I have conveyed that the criteria in the three para-
digms coincide with the concepts of community in Troeltsch’s tripartite
typology. The paradigm of secularization takes the concept of community
which Troeltsch characterized as ecclesiasticism as its criterion for mea-
suring religion. Religion is thriving in communities of unity and unifor-
mity—communities which allow neither for openness nor for otherness.
But Troeltsch already alluded to the fact that such a concept of commu-
nity might be etiological: it is never present, but a projection into the past
which explains the present.
Troeltsch’s critique of the interpretation of the Reformation as a radi-
cal rupture toward modernity is echoed by the critics of the paradigm of
secularization: the proponents of the paradigm of pluralization and the
proponents of the paradigm of individualization. The paradigm of plu-
96
Davie, ‘Vicarious Religion,’ 265. For the concentration on emotionality, see Davie,
‘Belief and Unbelief,’ 5.
97
Davie ‘Religion in Europe,’ 284.
98
Davie, ‘The Persistence of Institutional Religion in Modern Europe,’ in Peter Berger and
the Study of Religion, ed. Linda Woodhead (London: Routledge, 2001), 105. See also the
exploration of the consequences of the state-church system in Scandinavia in Grace Davie,
‘From Obligation to Consumption: A Framework for Reflection in Northern Europe,’
Political Theology 6/3 (2005), 281–301.
164 U. SCHMIEDEL
ralization takes the concept of community which Troeltsch characterized

as sectarianism as its criterion. Religion is thriving in communities which
are created through the separation of insiders and outsiders, communities
which recognize otherness without openness. The paradigm of individu-
alization takes the concept of community which Troeltsch characterized
as mysticism as its criterion. Religion is thriving in communities which are
rooted in the combination of insiders and outsiders, communities which
recognize openness without otherness. My exploration of the paradigms
of secularization, pluralization and individualization, then, has shown that
the sociology of religion operates normatively since the paradigms evaluate
the development of religion according to their respective norms.
Transposing the norms from the implicit to the explicit, I have described
how the ‘measurement’ of the development of religion depends on the
respective paradigms. If the paradigmatic criterion is set as ecclesiasticism,
the past is more religious than the present: hence secularization. If the
paradigmatic criterion is set as either sectarianism or mysticism, the pres-
ent is more religious than the past: hence de-secularization. However, my
point is not that criteria are applied to the measurement of religion, but
which criteria are applied to the measurement of religion. To recall the
conclusions of Chaps. 4 and 5: the concepts of community in Troeltsch’s
tripartite typology construe community through the attack on alterity.
Ecclesiasticism is marked by the absence of alterity; and whereas sec-
tarianism instrumentalizes the other for the anthropoemic bonding of
a homogeneous community (otherness without openness), mysticism
instrumentalizes the other for the anthropophagic bridging of a hetero-
geneous community (openness without otherness). What is at stake when
these concepts of community are taken as criteria in the sociology of reli-
gion is whether religion—in my case, Christianity—is understood through
appreciation of or attack on alterity. Despite their differences, the para-
digms of secularization, pluralization and individualization all assume that
the exposure to the otherness of the other is a problem for religion. Thus,
these paradigms counter the notion of a togetherness of trust in which
the relation to the finite other interrelates with the relation to the infinite
other. What, then, is the other—a problem or a promise?
The Cost of Community

In the sociology of religion, alterity is discussed through the cipher of plu-
rality, because plurality—the multiplication of religious and non-religious
options to choose from—follows from the exposure to the other. Plurality
is the core concern of Peter L. Berger, whose lifelong study of religion
revolves around the puzzle of pluralization.99 He shifted from an interpre-
tation of plurality as secularizing to an interpretation of plurality as both
secularizing and de-secularizing. This shift makes his studies particularly
promising to assess the interpretation of alterity in the sociology of reli-
gion.100 Exploring both Berger’s theories and the critique of Berger’s the-
ories, I aim to argue that alterity might be a promise rather than a problem
for Christianity. Christian community, then, cannot be constructed at the
cost of the other.
In The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a
Pluralist Age, published in 2015, Berger ties together his studies of plu-
ralization.101 He argues that modernization produces a ‘social situation’ in
which ways of life—a variety of religious as well as non-religious ways of
life—come into contact.102 Modernity comes with two pluralities: it puts
religion in contact with different religious and with different non-religious
ways of life.103 Yet, what are the consequences of these pluralities?
Initially, Berger argued that plurality erodes religion.104 He coined the
concept of the ‘heretical imperative’ to account for this erosion: αἵρεσις
99
See the contributions to Peter Berger and the Study of Religion for an overview of his
oeuvre, esp. Linda Woodhead, ‘Introduction,’ 1–8.
100
See the comprehensive (albeit critical) account by Steve Bruce, ‘The Curious Case of
the Unnecessary Recantation,’ in Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, 87–100.
101
Peter L. Berger, The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward A Paradigm for Religion in A
Pluralist Age (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015).
102
Ibid.
103
According to Berger, for the practitioner of a religion, the impact of non-religious plu-
rality is identical to the impact of religious plurality. Hence, in my account, I will not distin-
guish between two pluralities. Moreover, for the sake of simplicity, Berger refers to ‘pluralism’
rather than ‘plurality.’ He notes: ‘I had to keep explaining what I was talking about’ (ibid.,
1). Since Berger admits that ‘plurality’ would be the correct concept for the phenomenon
which he has in mind, I have chosen to refer to ‘plurality’ rather than ‘pluralism’
throughout.
104
Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of A Sociological Theory of Religion
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 105–174.
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refers to ‘choice.’105 In as much as modernization evokes the pluralization

of choices—which is to say, plurality—it leads to secularization. Berger’s
heretical imperative identifies the significance of choice along the lines
of Troeltsch’s types of sectarianism and mysticism. If perceived from the
perspective of ecclesiasticism, both are heresies—choices of heterodoxy
over orthodoxy. According to Berger, a choice cannot alleviate the con-
tingency which is connected to the pluralization of options: once one has
chosen a way of life, one is conscious of the fact that one could have
chosen otherwise or that one should have chosen otherwise. ‘Thus vari-
ous forms of interaction with different worldviews … initiate a process of
relativization.’106
Troeltsch argues that Christians have maintained their choice on the
cost of the other either through the sectarianist or through the mysticist
construction of community, in which alterity is neutralized. By contrast,
Berger focuses on the articulation or re-articulation of arguments for the
choice of Christianity. Under the conditions of plurality, faith has to be
affirmed; arguments for the choice of this faith in contrast to the choice of
that faith need to be articulated. Berger traces these argumentative affirma-
tions throughout the history of theology since Friedrich Schleiermacher,
pinpointing ‘deductive,’ ‘reductive’ and ‘inductive’ theological trajecto-
ries.107 Although these trajectories allow theologians to contain the cogni-
tively corrosive consequences of contingency, the erosion of faith cannot
be checked completely. ‘The management of doubt becomes a problem
for every religious tradition.’108 Therefore, pluralization is what links mod-
ernization and secularization.
However, Berger has developed doubts about the link between mod-
ernization and secularization.109 These doubts have led him to switch from
105
Peter L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious
Affirmation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979).
106
Berger, The Many, 3. Berger coined the concept of ‘plausibility structure’ by which he
means ‘the social context in which any cognitive or normative definition of reality is plausi-
ble’ (ibid., 31). He argues that mono-religious contexts confirm their religion while multi-
religious contexts corrode their religions.
107
Ibid. For Berger, the inductive option is exemplified by Friedrich Schleiermacher, the
deductive option by Karl Barth, and the reductive option by Rudolf Bultmann. Berger him-
self sides with Schleiermacher.
108
Berger, The Many, 32. However, Berger’s point could be expanded: plurality is a prob-
lem for every religious and for every non-religious tradition.
109
These doubts can be traced back to Peter L. Berger, Religion in a Revolutionary Society
(Washington, DC: American Institute for Public Policy Research, 1974), 16–17. See also
a linear theory of secularization to a non-linear theory of secularization

and de-secularization.110 Although he still assumes that choice is cogni-
tively corrosive for religions,111 Berger admits that he has misconceived
the relation between modernization, pluralization and secularization.112
Pluralization cannot link modernization to secularization because plural-
ity can have either secularizing or de-secularizing consequences. Berger
hints at these consequences when he writes about the pluralization as well
as the individualization of faith. These hints have been taken up by those
who criticize the paradigm of secularization which I have already analyzed:
the concept of a religious market, which is important for the paradigm of
pluralization, can be traced back to Berger, while the concept of a religious
mutation, which is important for the paradigm of individualization, can be
traced back to Berger and Luckmann.113
In The Many Altars of Modernity, Berger proposes ‘a paradigm for reli-
gion in a pluralist age’ in which religious and non-religious ways of life can
be practiced sequentially: when I do this (say, going to the circus), I am
primarily non-religious; when I do that (say, going to the church), I am
primarily religious.114 But the space which both ‘individuals’ and ‘institu-
tions’ allocate to the religious way of life, on the one hand, and to the
non-religious way of life, on the other, has to be negotiated.115 In these
negotiations individuals and institutions are connected: what occurs on
the individual level impacts the institution and vice versa.116 Examining
these negotiations and re-negotiations, Berger concludes, the sociology of
Berger, The Many, 19–21.

110
Peter L. Berger, ‘The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview,’ in The
Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, ed. Peter L. Berger
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 1–18.
111
Peter L. Berger, ‘Dialogue between Religious Traditions in an Age of Relativity,’ in
Peter L. Berger, Dialog zwischen religiösen Traditionen in einem Zeitalter der Relativität
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 14.
112
Peter L. Berger, ‘Postscript,’ in Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, 194.
113
See Peter L. Berger, ‘A Market Model for the Analysis of Ecumenicity,’ Social Research
30 (1963), 77–93. For the significance of his collaboration with Luckmann, see Davie, The
Sociology of Religion, 53–54.
114
Berger, The Many, 57. In her response to Berger, Nancy T. Ammerman, ‘Modern Altars
in Everyday Life,’ in ibid., 94–110, argues that religious and non-religious worldviews might
even be mixed; they can be held simultaneously rather than sequentially.
115
See Berger, The Many, chapter 2 on ‘individuals’ (ibid., 17–33) and chapter 3 on ‘insti-
tutions’ (ibid., 34–50).
116
Ibid. 60.
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religion ought to operate with the notion of an ‘interplay of secularizing

and de-secularizing forces’117 to account for the fact that today’s societies
are ‘as furiously religious as ever.’118
However, how can one assess Berger’s move from a linear theory of sec-
ularization to a non-linear theory of secularization and de-secularization?
Reflecting on Berger’s move, sociologists opt either for the ‘linear Berger’
against the ‘non-linear Berger’ or for the ‘non-linear Berger’ against the
‘linear Berger.’119 Hans Joas, however, opts against both.
In a seminal study, ‘Religion in the Age of Contingency,’ Joas criticizes
Berger for both of his theories.120 Joas is neither historically nor systemati-
cally convinced by Berger’s arguments. Historically, Berger overempha-
sizes the difference between the non-pluralized past and the pluralized
present. He falls for the chimera of a comprehensive church in the Corpus
Christianum.121 And, systematically, Berger overemphasizes the cognitive
corrosion which is provoked by the contingency of choice. As analyzed in
Chap. 3, for Joas, religious and non-religious faiths are rooted in experi-
ences of self-transcendence.122 These experiences are not experiences of
choice but experiences of being chosen. Hence, Joas criticizes the ubiqui-
tous application of the concept of choice in the sociology of religion.123 He
argues that the argumentative affirmations which Berger traces through-
out the history of theology are eventually expandable for faith: faith is not
created by arguments; therefore, faith is not corroded by arguments.124
Instead, faith, according to Joas, is comparable to trust.125 He exemplifies
117
Berger, ‘The Desecularization of the World,’ 7.
118
Ibid., 2. See also Berger, The Many, 1–16.
119
See Bruce, ‘The Curious Case,’ 87–100. See also the response by Detlef Pollack,
‘Toward a New Paradigm for the Sociology of Religion,’ in Berger, The Many, 111–122,
who argues that Berger’s paradigm of pluralization is still implicitly and inadvertently sup-
porting the paradigm of secularization.
120
Hans Joas, ‘Glaube und Moral im Zeitalter der Kontingenz,’ in Braucht der Mensch
Religion?, 32–49, ET: ‘Religion in the Age of Contingency,’ in Do We Need Religion?,
21–35.
121
In The Many, Berger does not refer or respond to Joas’s critique. Although his interpre-
tation of the Corpus Christianum is more careful than in previous publications, Berger still
holds that pluralization marks the difference between premodern and modern societies.
122
As mentioned in Chap. 3, Joas’s reflection on the experience of self-transcendence can
be traced back to Joas, The Genesis of Values.
123
Joas, Glaube als Option, 9–11. ET: xi–xii.
124
Joas, ‘Glaube und Moral im Zeitalter der Kontingenz,’ 32–49, ET: 21–35.
125
Joas, Faith as an Option, 85.
the phenomenon of trust with reference to the relation between him and
his spouse. The fact that he could have chosen a different spouse does not
shatter the connection to his spouse. Analogically, Joas argues in a train
of thought reminiscent of William James,126 the fact that he could have
chosen a different faith does not shatter the connection to his faith.127 The
conversion—be it the conversion to his finite (significant) other or to his
infinite (significant) other—is experienced not as a choice, but as a being
chosen.128
Charles Taylor endorses Joas’s compelling critique.129 In A Secular
Age, Taylor traces the emergence of what he calls ‘the immanent frame,’
which ‘constitutes a “natural” order to be contrasted to a “supernatural”
order.’130 However, the present ‘immanent frame’ is neither the distor-
tion nor the destruction of the past transcendent frame: ‘The immanent
order can … slough off the transcendent. But it doesn’t necessarily do
so.’131 Rather, there are conflicts between the closure and the non-closure
of the immanent frame over against the transcendent: pressure, counter-
pressure, and ‘people who have been cross-pressured between these two
basic orientations.’132 A consequence of pluralization, these pressures
cause the ‘fragilization’ of both the closed frame and the non-closed
frame. Taylor’s account of modernization comes close to Berger’s theory
of secularization and de-secularization, but he distinguishes his concept of
the ‘fragilization’ of faith from Berger’s. Irrespective of the convergences
and the divergences of these accounts, Taylor argues that pluralization
increases the possibilities of ‘conversion’ between a variety of religious and
a variety of non-religious ways of life. This increase, however, ‘says noth-
ing about … the firmness of the faith.’133 It can either increase or decrease
one’s commitment to one’s faith. Taylor’s account of the openness of the
immanent frame is instructive for the sociological study of alterity. To
recall the citation from Chap. 1 above, the immanent frame allows for
both religious and non-religious interpretations.
126
See again the account of James’s creative circle of trust in Joas, Die Entstehung der
Werte, 58–86, ET: 35–53. See also Chap. 1.
127
128
Ibid.
129
Taylor, A Secular Age, 808n. 4, 833–834n. 19.
130
Ibid., 542.
131
Ibid., 543.
132
Ibid., 458.
133
Ibid., 808n. 4, 833–834n. 19
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[M]y understanding of the immanent frame is that, properly understood, it

allows for both readings, without compelling us to either. If you grasp our
predicament without ideological distortion …, then you see that going one
way or another requires what is often called a ‘leap of faith.’134
Although Taylor—unlike Joas—hesitates to use the terminology of trust,

his account of faith could be described along these lines. Drawing on
James’s metaphor of the jump (which I examined in Chap. 1), he assesses
the leap of faith as ‘anticipatory confidence.’135 He traces how the open-
ness of the immanent frame for such anticipatory confidence is closed by
what he calls ‘spins.’ By ‘spin,’ Taylor means ‘a way of convincing one-
self that one’s reading is obvious’—a strategy which closes the immanent
frame.136 For Taylor, closures might operate in two directions, the vertical
one and the horizontal one: I might convince myself of the obviousness
of the necessity of the transcendent, such that going to church and going
to the circus are radically religious for me; or I might convince myself
of the obviousness of the necessity of the immanent, such that going to
church and going to the circus are radically non-religious for me. But in
fact he analyzes only those spins which close the frame off against the
transcendent.137
Taylor admits that his account of these spins rests on intellectualiza-
tion and idealization, linking his methodology to Max Weber’s ‘ideal-
types.’138 He analyzes the secularist spins, distinguishing between ‘three
categories’ of what he calls ‘closed world structures.’139 It is not essen-
tial (although it would be exciting) to compare these three categories to
Troeltsch’s typology in order to uncover how alterity—in Taylor’s case,
the alterity of the creator; in Troeltsch’s case, the alterity of the creator
and of the creature—is neutralized in order to turn from the state of
ambiguity to the state of non-ambiguity.140 Taylor argues that all of his
134
Ibid., 550.
135
Ibid. According to Taylor, the theistic traditions which refer to trust in God in terms of
a leap of faith refer to the contents of faith. Taylor, however, is interested in the mode(s) in
which these contents of faith are received.
136
Ibid., 551, 555.
137
Ibid., 556.
138
Ibid., 557.
139
Ibid., 551.
140
Ibid., 449, Taylor refers to Troeltsch’s typology. However, he merely mentions ecclesi-
asticism and sectarianism; mysticism is lacking in Taylor’s account. See also Taylor, Varieties
of Religion Today, 72. This lack is striking because Taylor is interested in the process of indi-
ideal-types are variations on a sole and single theme: ‘a narrative of com-

ing of age.’141 The (phylo)genetic narrative plots the maturation process
of humanity from a premature state of ambiguity (which is to say, open-
ness to transcendence—going to church, so to speak) to a mature state of
non-ambiguity (which is to say, non-openness to transcendence—going
to the circus, so to speak). Thus, the closure of the immanent frame is
naturalized, unchallenged and unchallengeable. If the exposure to alterity
might trigger, as I have argued in Chap. 3, the experience of a transfor-
mative transcendence, Taylor’s closed world structures can be assessed as
secularist strategies for the neutralization of alterity which closes the self
off against transcendence and transformation. When these strategies suc-
ceed, trust (in Taylor’s terminology: the leap of faith which is rooted in
anticipatory confidence) becomes impossible. There is no trust without
ambiguity and alterity.
Taylor responds to these secularist strategies through a historical–her-
meneutical account of conversions.142 He characterizes conversions as
experiences in which the frame is opened to what is beyond the frame,
which ‘changes the meaning of all the elements of the frame.’143 As a con-
sequence, the distinction between the natural and the supernatural—the
immanent and the transcendent—is challenged. Taylor explores poetry as
a medium in which these challenges can be articulated. Without delving
into the intricacies of his analysis, I infer from it that the experience of
conversion is not a conversion from an exclusively immanent frame (cir-
cus vs. church) into an exclusively transcendent frame (church vs. circus).
Instead, it is the reintroduction of ambiguity into the immanent frame
(traces of church in the circus and traces of circus in the church). Through
ambiguity, then, the immanent frame is opened to alterity. Accordingly,
Taylor’s account of experiences of transcendence is similar to Troeltsch’s
account of experiences of transcendence: religiosity revolves around the
experience of the transcendence of the other.144
vidualization. Here Troeltsch’s third type would have been useful to him, because it allows
for a more subtle account of the optionality which comes with individualization by distin-
guishing between sectarianism and mysticism.
141
Taylor, A Secular Age, 589.
142
Ibid., 728–772.
143
Ibid., 731.
144
Pearson, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and Contemporary Discourses of Secularization,’ 178n. 16,
also points to similarities between Taylor and Troeltsch.
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Like Troeltsch, Taylor explores how the ambiguity in one’s life world
is dogmatically domesticated. He argues that the convert ‘is in a unique
situation.’145 Since ecclesiasticism—Taylor refers to it as ‘Christendom’—
permeates the religious and the non-religious imagination today, ‘the sense
can easily arise, that the task of breaking out of the dominant immanen-
tist orders today is already defined by the model of the Christendom.’146
Taylor is hesitant to endorse the return to Christendom, portraying both
its advantages and disadvantages. He prefers and proposes the continuous
combination of multiple models from the past and from the present. To
argue for his proposal, he—like Troeltsch—refers to Leopold von Ranke’s
slogan that each and every time is ‘unmittelbar zu Gott’147: immediate to
God. It is striking how much Taylor’s conclusion sounds like Troeltsch’s
conclusion of a combination of ecclesiasticism, sectarianism and mysticism:
Neither of us grasps the whole picture … But there are a great many of us,
scattered through history, who have had some powerful sense of some facet
of this drama. Together we can live it more fully than any one of us could
alone. Instead of reaching immediately for the weapons of polemic, we
might better listen for a voice which we could never have assumed ourselves,
whose tone might have been forever unknown to us if we hadn’t strained to
understand it. We will find that we will have to extend this courtesy even to
people who would never have extended it to us.148
Hence, the convert or reconvert is dependent on the voices of oth-

ers. Taylor, seemingly aware of the ‘sermon-sound’ of his statement,
stresses that the issue between the two ways of relating to the history of
Christianity—either privileging or not privileging one of its past periods—
‘is not likely to be resolved calmly.’149 Therefore, ‘religious faith can be
dangerous. Opening to transcendence is fraught with peril. But this is
particularly so if we respond to these perils by premature closure, drawing
an unambiguous boundary between the pure and the impure through the
polarization of conflict.’150 Against such polarization, Taylor argues that
145
Taylor, A Secular Age, 734.
146
Ibid., 734–735.
147
Ibid., 745.
148
Ibid., 754.
149
Ibid., 766.
150
Ibid., 769.
the point of equilibrium in the immanent frame is fragile: some desire to

move further ‘inward’ and some desire to move further ‘outward.’151
The difference between these desires is to be discussed in conversa-
tion—a conversation for which, according to both Taylor and Troeltsch,
a community would be crucial. As Taylor explains, ‘The Church was
rather meant to be the place in which human beings, in all their difference
and disparate itineraries, come together; and in this regard we are obvi-
ously falling short.’152 Taylor and Troeltsch, then, call for a construction
of community—in their case, church—which is open(ed) to the other.
Here, alterity is not the problem of religion in modernity; alterity is the
promise of religion in modernity, because the exposure to the otherness
of the other might allow for experiences of a transforming transcendence.
Thus, church has to engage rather than disengage the other. Church is, as
Rowan Williams argues, about ‘the unique gift of the other that God has
given you to live with.’153 Accordingly, the point is not to choose a church
which one agrees with rather than a church which one disagrees with.154
Since the other is, by definition, not chosen, the point is rather to claim
and reclaim church together with the other.
To summarize, I have explored the concepts of community at work in
the paradigms which dominate the discussion in the sociology of religion:
the paradigm of secularization operates with a concept of community
which Troeltsch would call ecclesiasticist; the paradigm of pluralization
operates with a concept of community which Troeltsch would call sec-
tarianist; and the paradigm of individualization operates with a concept
of community which Troeltsch would call mysticist. Because the three
paradigms take different concepts as criteria, they arrive at different con-
clusions concerning empirical data: either the data are seen to support the
diagnosis of secularization or the data are seen to support the diagnosis
of de-secularization. This paradigm perceives data this way, that paradigm
perceives data that way. My concern is not that criteria are used but which
criteria are used. The criteria employed in the paradigms of secularization,
151
Ibid., 770.
152
Ibid., 772. For Taylor’s account of church, see also Percy, The Ecclesial Canopy, 94–105.
153
Williams, Tokens of Trust, 106 (emphasis in the original). For the significance of trust in
Williams’s ecclesiology, see Jesse Zink, ‘Patiently Living With Difference: Rowan Williams’
Archiepiscopal Ecclesiology and the Proposed Anglican Covenant,’ Ecclesiology 9 (2013),
223–241.
154
See also the chapter, ‘Beyond “In” or “Out”: Reframing Ecclesiological Debate,’ in
Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology, 101–115.
174 U. SCHMIEDEL
pluralization and individualization share a central assumption: commu-

nity is constructed through the attack on alterity. Criticizing their central
assumption, I have argued that alterity could be reframed as a promise
rather than a problem.
In conclusion, following the thrust of Troeltsch’s and Taylor’s studies,
my analysis (Chap. 4) and my applications (Chaps. 5 and 6) of the tripar-
tite typology taught ecclesiology a negative rather than a positive lesson:
not how to construct community but how not to construct community.
If a community aims to foster and facilitate relations to the other, it can-
not be constructed at the cost of the other. Rather, community is to be
open(ed) to the other. Thus, I return to the concept of trust. In Chaps. 1,
2 and 3, I have defined trust as a relation to the other which is character-
ized by openness to the other’s otherness. As mentioned above, in Faith
as an Option, Joas suggests that ‘faith … should be understood in light of
the phenomenon of trust-forming.’155 He offers no in-depth or in-detail
analysis of trust, but confirms that trust engages rather than disengages
the other. To understand Christianity ‘in the light of the phenomenon of
trust-forming,’ then, calls for a radical rethinking of church as a together-
ness of trust.

155
PART III
Identity
The use of English is not what distinguishes the community with which I
celebrated the service from the religious and non-religious communities in
the city (a number of congregations in the city offer services in English or
sermons in English translation). Even Anglicanism is not their core concern.
According to the minister, Anglicans are actually the minority in the com-
munity. From what I experienced when I celebrated with the congregation,
the core concern is participation and practice. The minster mentioned the
conviction of the members of the community that ‘they are meant to be liv-
ing out their lives in a kind way.’ However, what sounds like a simple and
straight point of departure stirs up considerable controversy about the identity
of Christianity. What does it mean to be ‘kind’? What does it mean not to be
‘kind’? And how can one tell the difference? Whether the members of the com-
munity are interested or uninterested in theology, questions like these provoke
conversations about the (tacit) theologies of the community where the implicit
is turned explicit.
I am talking to a man, in his forties or fifties, from Uganda. He is a refu-
gee. According to the minster, the congregation had ‘mixed success’ with refu-
gees, but he is one of those who stayed. He had to flee from Uganda because of
the ‘Anti Homosexuality Act,’ which sustained and strengthened homophobia
throughout the country. The criminalization of same-sex relations has stirred
up controversy among Anglicans worldwide—so it did, albeit less loudly, in
the community with which I celebrated. Nonetheless, the man is cheerful.
Among the Anglicans of the city, he insists, he has found a ‘home.’ He belongs
176 PART III: IDENTITY
to the core of the community, supporting its ambitions and activities wherever
and whenever he can.
Later, the minister will tell me how relieved she is that she has not been
asked to marry same-sex couples. She would not know how to react, personally
and professionally. The tension between principles and policy is palpable. But
what strikes me is that (homo)sexuality is not separating the community.
Here, it becomes thinkable that those who are against same-sex marriage sup-
port homosexuals and that homosexuals support those who are against same-
sex marriage. The minister mentioned that ‘whatever the official policies,
most weight is placed on accepting people “as they are”’—acceptance which
triggers theological discussion about what it means to be Christian. Usually,
these discussions are not resolved or solved through a consensus, yet the lack of
consensus is not divisive. It is diversifying: the people in the community stick
together, they keep thinking and they keep talking to each other. Here, the
identity of Christianity is neither fixed nor finished.
There is a cross made out of cobble-stones on the floor at the center of the
church, a cross where people from inside and outside the community come in
order to light candles. It is incredibly popular. Given the way people act and
interact in the community, the cobble-stone cross could symbolize the place
and the space where the community comes together to work out what it is.
Its identity is experimental—‘an interesting experiment,’ as the minister
argued, ‘is put into action.’
The task of Christian community is to interrelate the relations to the
finite other with the relations to the infinite other. To fulfill its task, church
must not be closed. Moving from the concept of religiosity in Part I to
the concept of community in Part II, I have examined the elements which
are essential to resist the closure of church. Exploring Ernst Troeltsch’s
reception of William James’s approach to the experience of transcendence
(Chaps. 1 and 2), I have discussed two ecclesiological risks against which
Troeltsch cautioned—the postliberal risk of ecclesial solidity, in which the
communal drains the personal, and the liberal risk of ecclesial liquidity,
in which the personal drains the communal. If ecclesiology falls for these
risks, it prevents the provocation and the preservation of the togetherness
of trust, advocated in Chap. 3. In trustful togetherness, the transformative
transcendence of the finite other might be experienced as a gateway into a
relation to the infinite other as much as the transformative transcendence
of the infinite other might be experienced as a gateway into a relation to
the finite other.
PART III: IDENTITY 177
Troeltsch traced the interrelation of these relations to the practice of

Jesus. However, as I continued to argue in Chaps. 4 and 5, throughout the
history of Christianity, the communities which followed and flowed from
the practice of Jesus have often been constructed at the cost of the other.
In the clutches of the chimera of the comprehensive church of ecclesiasti-
cism, both theological and sociological thinkers have understood the iden-
tity of Christianity either as sectarianist ecclesial ‘blueprints’ which solidify
church by anthropoemically neutralizing the other through exclusion
(the postliberal risk), or as mysticist ecclesial ‘blueprints’ which liquefy
church by anthropophagically neutralizing the other through inclusion
(the liberal risk). By putting these programmatic plans of the identity of
Christianity into practice, ecclesiologists have conceived of plurality as a
threat. But in Chap. 6, I have argued that the other might be a promise for
Christianity, because the exposure to the otherness of the other allows for
experiences of transforming transcendence. Thus, church has to engage
rather than disengage the other.
The concept of identity has been exposed as the problem for the
elasticization of ecclesiology, because a construction of the identity of
Christianity immediately implies a separation of insiders and outsiders—a
separation through which church is controlled and curtailed, closed off
against the other. Hence, to seek a concept of identity which includes
rather than excludes alterity is to square a circle; the question of identity is
the quandary of identity.
In the following and final three chapters, I will investigate the ques-
tions and the quandaries of the identity of Christianity. I aim to advocate a
turn in the interpretation of the identity of Christianity—from what I call
a propositional possession to what I call a performative project. By drawing
this distinction,1 I signal that the identity of Christianity ought not to be
fixed in a freeze-frame. The practices of Christianity have been changing
continually in the past and in the present—changes which are vital for
Christianity. Christianity could and should not to be owned by Christians.
The identity of Christianity, then, is a task, a project rather than a posses-
sion.2 In order to tackle the task of conceptualizing a continually c hanging
1
With the distinction of ‘performativity’ and ‘propositionality,’ I deviate from the termi-
nology of Austin’s How To Do Things With Words (as examined Chap. 1) in order to empha-
size that I am taking Austin’s analysis out of its confinement within speech-act theory.
2
For the analysis of identity as ‘achieved’ rather than ‘ascribed,’ Paul Ricoeur’s distinction
between ‘ipse identity,’ revolving around the notion of the self, and ‘idem identity,’ revolving
around the notion of the same, is important. See Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 115–118,
178 PART III: IDENTITY
identity, I will argue, the identification of Christianity is not to be anchored

in a ‘describing’ of locutionary identity but in a ‘doing’ of illocutionary
identity. The turn from propositional possession to performative project
has explosive effects: it engages identity with alterity, envisioning a notion
of the identity of Christianity which defies anthropophagic and anthropo-
emic neutralizations of alterity. Such a concept of identity, I will continue
to argue, enables church to be open(ed) to the other. Hence, the elasti-
cization of ecclesiology which I have developed, defined and discussed
throughout my study concludes in an account of church as a ‘work in
movement’—a work which is to be done again and again.3
140–168. Inspired by Ricoeur, Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 159–182, interprets the

identity of Christianity as ‘a task,’ shifting Christianity from the notion of same to the notion
of self. The understanding of identity as a task is also the culmination of Kathryn Tanner’s
Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress,
1997), esp. 151–155.
3
For the notion of ‘work in movement,’ see Eco, The Open Work. I will return to this
notion in Chap. 9.
CHAPTER 7
The Trouble with Trust
Trust, I have argued in Chaps. 1, 2 and 3, is relational: it requires relations

to the respective other. I have called the web of relations in which the rela-
tion to the finite other interrelates with the relation to the infinite other
‘togetherness of trust’—a way of being together in which one can learn
how to trust the infinite other by trusting the finite other and how to trust
the finite other by trusting the infinite other.
In this chapter, then, I will return to trust. I will depict the together-
ness of trust in more depth and in more detail in order to discuss concepts
and concerns which are imperative to rethink the identity of Christianity
in terms of trust in Chaps. 8 and 9. I will argue that the togetherness of
trust troubles the identity of any community. But the trouble with trust is
creative rather than corrosive. To recall Zygmunt Bauman:
[I]dentity must belie its origin; it must deny being ‘just a surrogate’—it
needs to conjure up a phantom of the self-same community which it has
come to replace. Identity spouts on the graveyard of communities, but
flourishes thanks to the promise of a resurrection of the dead.1
In order to allow communities to flourish, any essentialization inherent in

concepts and constructions of identity must be exploded. Trust has explo-
sive effects. It disintegrates the concept of causality against which Bauman
cautions: if a community is conceived of as a togetherness of trust, it is
1
Bauman, Community, 16. See also my analysis in Chap. 5.

180 U. SCHMIEDEL
not the identity which creates the practice of community, but the practice
of community which creates the identity. Trust calls for a turn to practice.
I will proceed in three steps. First, I will characterize togetherness as
a technique of trust (step 1). Practices of trust are neither manufactured
nor maintained through the construction of identity. Instead, exposure
to alterity can count as the technique of trust because it opens up a space
for the recognition of the otherness of the other in which trust is rooted.
I will explore the significance of suspicion for the togetherness of trust
(step 2). I will argue that the togetherness of trust is characterized neither
by trust without doubt nor by doubt without trust. In trust, the other is
engaged in what could be called a trusting doubt (or a doubting trust).
But in spite of the significance of suspicion for trust, the intentional or
unintentional betrayal of the truster by the trustee cannot be ruled out.
Finally, I will argue that the trouble with trust, which keeps communities
open to the other, is vital for the manifestation of truth (step 3). If truth
is transformative, then a person enables truth to manifest itself by opening
herself up to the other. In order to resist stagnation in the search for truth,
however, openness to otherness ought to be complemented by critical and
self-critical reflections on any assertion that truth has been fully or finally
identified.
Throughout, I will refer to the interpretation of trust advanced by
Claudia Welz and Arne Grøn. These two phenomenological–philosoph-
ical theologians conceive of trust with the metaphors of ‘openness’ or
‘opening,’ indicating the interrelation of trust to the finite other and to
the infinite other for which I have argued in Chap. 3.2 What makes them
particularly pertinent for a characterization of the togetherness of trust is
that they elucidate why trust could and why trust should be provoked and
preserved.
The Technique of Trust
Etymologically, ‘technique’ comes from τεχνικός which means ‘pertaining

to art.’ Hence, ‘technique’ points to the artistic rather than the automatic;
and the Greek concept of τέχνη conceives of art as the ability to practice.
What I mean by ‘technique of trust’ is the ability to practice trust. I aim
to advocate togetherness as a technique of trust. I will argue that togeth-
2
See Arne Grøn and Claudia Welz, ‘Introduction: Trust in Question,’ in Trust, Sociality,
Selfhood, 1–9.
THE TROUBLE WITH TRUST 181
erness—being together—is the condition for the exposure to the other;

that the exposure to the other is the condition for the recognition of the
transformative transcendence of the other; and that the recognition of the
transformative transcendence of the other is the condition for trust. Thus,
trust is to be facilitated indirectly rather than directly; it cannot be forced,
but it can be fostered in a space which allows for exposures to the other—a
space which I call ‘togetherness of trust.’
Arne Grøn investigates the conditions of trust. He criticizes interpre-
tations of trust which take trust as a firm rather than a fragile funda-
ment.3 He argues that sociality, the structuring of interpersonal relations,
is not built on trust—as concepts of ‘basic’ or ‘basal’ trust would have it.4
Rather, trust is what is at stake in sociality.5 Grøn comes close to interpret-
ing trust as a relation to the other which is characterized by openness to
otherness, when he, pointing to notions of trust in the wake of Martin
Luther, emphasizes that trust is ‘eccentric’: when one trusts, ‘one is out-
side oneself.’6
The ‘eccentricity’ of trust implies that the truster is open to the trustee.
As a consequence, the one who trusts relinquishes control over the one
who is trusted—she is simultaneously ‘subject’ and ‘subjected.’7 This
simultaneity confirms the mixture of activity and passivity in the practice
of trust (as analyzed in Chaps. 1, 2 and 3). Grøn coins the concept of the
‘ambiguity of subjectivity’ to point to this mixture.8 What follows from
the ambiguity of subjectivity in the practice of trust is that the truster
acknowledges the trustee without confining her to what she acknowledg-
3
See Arne Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ in Trust, Sociality, Selfhood, 13–30; and Arne
Grøn, ‘Grenzen des Vertrauens: Kritische Bemerkungen zur Rede von “Grundvertrauen”,’
in Grundvertrauen, 145–158.
4
Erik H. Erikson’s distinction between ‘basic trust’ and ‘basic mistrust’ inspired these
concepts. For critical comments see also Welz, Vertrauen und Verschuchung, 71–75. Brigitte
Boothe, ‘Urvertrauen und elterliche Praxis,’ in Grundvertrauen, 67–86, has offered a con-
vincing reinterpretation of Erikson’s theory. She argues that the trust of a child is generated
in the parental practice of entrusting their child.
5
See again Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 13–30; and Grøn, ‘Grenzen des Vertrauens,’
145–158.
6
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 17. On the notion of eccentricity, see also Grøn,
‘Grenzen des Vertrauens,’ 148–149: ‘eccentricity’ points to the structure of subjectivity in
which the subject is outside of the subject. According to Grøn, trust is a way to cope with
this structure. See also Chap. 3.
7
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 16.
8
Ibid.
182 U. SCHMIEDEL
es.9 In the practice of trust, the other is allowed to transform the way one
thinks and talks about her. Grøn points to the ‘process of recognition.’10
Of course, ‘recognition’ is a complex concept with a checkered career
in philosophy and theology.11 Grøn conceives of recognition as a way of
seeing:
If we think that we can see the other as she is ‘in herself,’ we fail to recognize
her as a self relating to herself. By contrast, to see that she is ‘in herself,’
beyond that as which we see her, is to recognize her in the strong sense of
seeing her as standing on her own feet, being independent of our relation
to her. The other is beyond our relation to her already in responding on her
own to what we do to her.12
Described differently, recognition means to register and to respect the tran-

scendence of the other so as to allow her to transform one’s evaluations
and one’s expectations of her: transformative transcendence. Trust, as
Grøn argues, ‘demands’ to acknowledge the other as other—‘seeing her
beyond our identification. She is in-visible.’13 By ‘in-visibility,’ he means
the simultaneity of the visibility and the invisibility of the other, that which
one can know about her and that which one cannot know about her.
‘Ethically, trust implies a strong notion of alterity.’14
Considering its creative circularity, the experience of trust is more an
experience of being chosen than an experience of choosing.15 Trust might
be demanded or commanded, but one cannot force it. One cannot force
oneself to trust: sometimes, one does not trust the other although one
9
Ibid., 21.
10
Ibid., 14.
11
See The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Hans-
Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn (Lanham: Lexington, 2010).
12
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 16 (emphasis in the original). For Grøn’s account of
the ethics of vision, see Arne Grøn, ‘Ethics of Vision: Seeing the Other as Neighbour,’ in
Dynamics of Difference, 63–70. For a diverse discussion on the ethics of in-visibility, see the
contributions to Ethics of In-Visibility: Imago Dei, Memory and Human Dignity in Jewish
and Christian Thought, ed. Claudia Welz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015). A short sum-
mary can be found in my review, ‘Rezension zu Claudia Welz (Hg.), Ethics of In-Visibility:
Imago Dei, Memory and Human Dignity in Jewish and Christian Thought,’ Theologische
Literaturzeitung, 140/11 (2014), 1272–1274.
13
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 28 (emphasis in the original).
14
Ibid. The ‘strong notion of alterity’ is what I approached through the terms ‘transcen-
dence’ and ‘transformation’ in Chap. 3.
15
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality and Selfhood,’ 13–14, 26–29.
decided to trust her and sometimes one does trust the other although one
decided not to trust her.16 Hence, trust is neither manufactured nor main-
tained. On the contrary, ‘it “gives itself”.’17 Drawing the conclusions from
the ambiguity of subjectivity in the practice of trust, Grøn argues that trust
is to be created indirectly rather than directly. Trust flows in an ‘indirect
process’ rather than a ‘direct programme.’18 His point is that a creation of
trust which aims for a creation of trust would destruct what it wants to
construct. He explains:
If I only trust the other in order to win her trust, I do not trust her. In trust,
we expose ourselves in the sense that we cannot reduce each other to what
might be the interest which drives us … If she discovers that we only trust
in order for her to trust us, she is likely to react to us.19
Accordingly, to trust the other in order to create the trust of the other
would turn trust into its opposite: closure and control. The other would
be instrumentalized and incapacitated in the ‘economy of exchange, which
reduces reciprocity to what would serve each of us.’20 Such an economy
could not be challenged by the other. Hence, the production of trust may
paradoxically provoke the perversion of trust, but in the circle of trust,
trust gives trust.
Overall, what I infer from Grøn’s phenomenological–philosophical
exploration of trust is that one ought to allow for the subject’s exposure
to the otherness of the other from which recognition of the other’s trans-
formative transcendence might follow—a recognition which is vital for
trust.21 Such recognition must not be instrumentalized. Trust requires a
space for encounters with the other. Togetherness—being together—is a
technique of trust if it opens up the space for the recognition of the other-
ness of the other including the self as other. Here, Grøn echoes William
James’s circle of trust examined in Chap. 1: ultimately, trust creates trust.22
The togetherness of trust, then, would be distorted by the construction of
identity which distinguishes between the trustworthy insider and the non-
16
Ibid., 24.
17
Ibid.
18
Grøn and Welz, ‘Introduction,’ 3 (emphasis in the original).
19
Grøn, ‘Trust, Sociality, Selfhood,’ 27.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 13–14, 26–29.
22
As far as I can ascertain, Grøn has not discussed James’s concept of trust.
184 U. SCHMIEDEL
trustworthy outsider. Such a construction of identity would not create

but corrode the togetherness of trust. Yet, what would the togetherness
of trust, the mode of being together which provokes rather than prevents
trust, look like?
The Trouble of Trust

Claudia Welz investigates correspondences between trust and tempta-
tion.23 She understands trust as a person’s ‘opening (Öffnung) or open-
ness (Offenheit) for the other,’ where both opening and openness are
experienced as ‘self-transcendence.’24 Hence, she comes close to my defi-
nition of trust as a relation to the other which is characterized by openness
to otherness. I will explore her investigation of the limits of trust in order
to chart what a togetherness of trust would look like. I will argue that the
togetherness of trust engenders hermeneutical practices which are marked
by what I call ‘doubt within trust’ in contrast to either ‘doubt without
trust’ or ‘trust without doubt.’
Welz approaches the limits of trust through a phenomenology of
‘judgement (Urteil)’ and ‘misjudgement (Fehlurteil).’25 A person exposes
the judgment she has made as either correct or incorrect through a judg-
ment about the judgment she has made: the judgment after and about the
judgment enables the ‘self-relocation’ of the person with regard to her
judgment.26 But when the person judges trust, Welz argues, her judgment
is not a postjudgment but a prejudgment: a ‘prejudice (Vor-Urteil).’27
Since the trustworthiness of the other cannot be judged prior to the rela-
tion to the other, one has to be prejudiced to trust her in order to judge
her trustworthiness or her non-trustworthiness.28 Welz concludes that the
prejudice of trust allows for the practice of trust and that the practice of
trust allows for the prejudice of trust.29 But should one trust one’s trust?30
23
See Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung.
24
Ibid., 5; see also 91–93. For a detailed discussion of the openness of trust, see also Welz,
‘Trust as Basic Openness,’ 45–64.
25
Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 33–68.
26
Ibid., 38.
27
Ibid., 39.
28
Ibid.
29
Neither James’s philosophy nor James’s psychology of trust are engaged with in
Vertrauen und Versuchung; nonetheless, Welz comes close to the Jamesian circumscription of
the circle of trust.
30
See Welz, Vertrauen und Verschung, 57.
Welz insists that suspicions about the other’s trustworthiness or non-

trustworthiness are not neutral.31 When one asks whether one should
or should not trust the other, trust has become suspicious; the practice
of trust is distorted where trust is distrusted (and distrust is trusted).32
The result of the creative circle of trust is that trust is always appropri-
ate—when the other is trustworthy and when the other is not trustwor-
thy.33 Trust is even appropriate when the truster has been disappointed
by the trustee. If the truster terminates trust because her trust has been
betrayed by the trustee, then she renders the start or the restart of a rela-
tion between them impossible.34 Without the truster’s prejudice of trust,
it is impossible for the trustee to gain or regain the truster’s trust. Hence,
with or without disappointment, the prejudice of trust—the (Jamesian)
jump—is the point of departure for relations with the other.35 Trust cre-
ates trust. The moment trust is calculated through the construction of
conditions of trustworthiness or non-trustworthiness, one closes oneself
off against the other.36 Such controlling closure is in danger of stopping
the transformation which might be triggered by a relation to the other.37
The other is curtailed; confined to one’s concepts and one’s constructs of
her. Hence, disappointment—the intentional or the unintentional betrayal
of the truster by the trustee—cannot be excluded without turning trust
into distrust.38 Yet, again, should one trust one’s trust? What about the
real and reasonable suspicions one might have regarding the other?
31
Thus, Welz counters those concepts of trust which are inspired by rational-choice theory,
such as Diego Gambetta, ‘Can We Trust Trust?,’ in Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative
Relations, ed. Diego Gambetta (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 213–237.
32
Welz, Vertrauen und Verschung, 57.
33
I am not demanding a ‘blind’ trust in the other. As I will explain below, the trust which
is always appropriate is a trust which includes rather than excludes suspicion about the other.
34
Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 60–67.
35
Ibid. It could be argued that Welz clarifies Dalferth’s notion that trust is ‘truly’ trust
when the trustee who is trusted by the truster is not trustworthy (examined in Chap. 3). See
again Dalferth, ‘Vertrauen und Hoffen,’ 418.
36
See also Dalferth, ‘In God We Trust,’ 143–146.
37
See Welz, Vertrauen und Verschung, 61–62, where she emphasizes that the success of
one’s own orientation ought not to be the criterion according to which one does or does not
give trust. Otherwise one would not trust the other, but one’s evaluations and expectations
of the other.
38
Ibid., 60–67.
186 U. SCHMIEDEL
Welz is careful not to rule out such suspicions. Although she concen-
trates on the relation to God,39 her discussion of ‘doubt (Zweifel)’ holds
for both suspicion in relation to the finite other and suspicion in relation
to the infinite other. The purpose of Welz’s discussion is to expose the
alternative of trust without doubt and doubt without trust as a false alter-
native.40 Welz analyzes doubtless trust and trustless doubt, arguing that
both confine the other to one’s concept of the other. What I infer from
her analysis is that while trust without doubt concentrates on the identity
of the other (a concentration which claims that the other is totally cal-
culable), doubt without trust concentrates on the alterity of the other (a
concentration which claims that the other is totally incalculable).41
In the realm of religion, doubtless trust amounts to a fundamentalism
which has unwavering confidence that it knows God, while trustless doubt
amounts to a skepticism which has unwavering confidence that it does
not know God.42 Further, doubtless trust and trustless doubt prevent a
relation in which the other is allowed to transform one’s concept of the
other.43 There is no space for surprises. What is needed, then, is neither
‘trust without doubt’ nor ‘doubt without trust,’ but what I call ‘doubt
within trust.’ According to Welz, a trusting doubt might accomplish the
opposite of closure and control, because doubt within trust is capable of
opening up the concepts into which one has confined the other.44 If it is
not rooted in the relationality of trust, doubt destroys the otherness of
the other. But if it is rooted in the relationality of trust, doubt defends the
otherness of the other. Such a defense, however, requires the prejudice of
trust, because it implies that the suspicion is directed toward the truster
39
See the detailed discussion of the ‘trial of faith (Glaubensprüfung)’ in ibid., 158–177.
40
Ibid., 201. My formulas of ‘trust without doubt’ and ‘doubt without trust’ are based on
the discussion of doubt which Welz offers in ibid., 192–202.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 133–134. See also Welz, ‘Vertrauen und/oder Gewissheit,’ 345–380.
43
Identifying the im/possibility of hospitality, Jacques Derrida has pointed to the dilemma
of trust without doubt and doubt without trust. In order for hospitality to be hospitality, he
argues, there can be no qualitative distinction made between the hostile other and the non-
hostile other because such a distinction reveals preconceived notions of who or what the
other is, thus turning hospitality into inhospitality. He points to the term hostis, which is the
Latin root for both hospitality and hostility, to stress the ambivalence in any such hospitable
encounter with the other. Derrida, then, points to what I have called the prejudice of trust.
See Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to Respond
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
44
Welz, Vertrauen und Verschuchung, 134–135, 144–146, 202–209.
rather than the trustee. Hence, in comparison to the phenomenology of

judgment and misjudgment, a relocation of the subject is not provoked
by a judgment about a judgment. On the contrary, the self-relocation is
provoked by a prejudgment rather than a postjudgment.45
With the reference to ‘prejudgment,’ Welz arguably adopts Hans-
Georg Gadamer’s ‘rehabilitation’ of the ‘prejudice’ in the process of inter-
pretation.46 Gadamer’s hermeneutics pinpoints the productive power of
prejudices: a prejudice is needed in order to approach the object of inter-
pretation (whatever it may be), because it allows the subject of interpre-
tation to form and inform a perspective. Although the prejudice might
be changed in the process of interpretation, interpretation is impossible
without prejudices.47 Building on the rehabilitation of the prejudice allows
for an analysis of doubt within trust—beyond the false alternative of ‘trust
without doubt’ and ‘doubt without trust.’ Here, trust without doubt
could be rendered as reading a text without even considering to criticize
it, while doubt without trust could be rendered as criticizing a text with-
out even considering to read it. What is needed, then, is a reading which
allows for critique and self-critique. Gadamer, however, displaces the cen-
trality of critique in the process of reading—which is to say, he is suspi-
cious of suspicion. Thus, his critics flanked his rehabilitation of prejudice
with a rehabilitation of the critique of prejudice.48
45
Welz describes trust as a ‘groundless ground (grundloser Grund)’ (ibid., 113); however,
she stresses that her combination of ‘ground’ and ‘groundless’ is not paradoxical. On the one
hand, trust is groundless because one always already lacks the ‘grounds (Gründe)’ to reason
for trust: what is grounded with reasons is mistrust as opposed to trust. On the other hand,
trust is grounding because reasons for trust and mistrust are offered on the ground of trust
which is itself not grounded by these reasons. Hence both ‘trust and mistrust are grounding
precisely because they are groundless, which is to say, they cannot be caught by arguments’
(ibid.).
46
See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. revised Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall (London: Sheed and Ward Limited, 1989), 265–306. Welz does not
refer to Gadamer; however, she, like Gadamer, develops the rehabilitation of prejudice in
critical conversation with Immanuel Kant. See Welz, Vertrauen und Versuchung, 43–54.
47
For a succinct account of Gadamer’s hermeneutics see Jeanrond, Theological
Hermeneutics, 64–70.
48
See ibid, 67–77, where Jeanrond refers to Jürgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur,
of course, is the thinker who took both sides—the prejudice and the critique of prejudice—
into account when he coined the concept of the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion.’ See esp.
Ricoeur’s ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology,’ in Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and
the Human Sciences, 63–100.
188 U. SCHMIEDEL
Werner G. Jeanrond combines Gadamer and the critics of Gadamer in

what I term a three-dimensional concept of interpretation.49 His concept
might underpin the role and relevance of doubt within trust. Examining
the tension between the text and the reader of the text, Jeanrond builds
on Gadamer to depict reading as an ‘existential activity.’50 The reader
opens herself to the text in order to be transformed by her reading—the
prejudice of trust. However, Jeanrond insists that the reader’s openness
must not override critical and self-critical explanations of the text because
transformation is ambiguous, allowing for disclosures and distortions of
meaning. He points to Paul Ricoeur’s critique of Gadamer which high-
lighted the distinction between a primary naïveté and a secondary naïveté:
interpretation involves an existential preunderstanding (primary naïveté)
which is followed by critical and self-critical explanation, which is then
followed by an existential understanding (secondary naïveté).51 Here, the
secondary naïveté becomes the primary naïveté as the process of inter-
pretation begins again and again. In critical conversation with Ricoeur,
Jeanrond stresses the interrelation of these moments within the process of
interpretation where the existential and the explanatory cannot be nicely
and neatly distinguished.52 Jeanrond also invokes the ethical responsibility
which is involved in existential and explanatory interpretation: the ideolo-
gies of both the text and the reader of the text must come under critique
in every interpretative act. Interpretation, therefore, combines existential,
explanatory and ethical dimensions.53
Drawing out the implications of Jeanrond’s concept of interpretation,
I am arguing that the practice of trust is characterized by three herme-
neutical dimensions. Trust requires existential openness to the other. Yet,
this openness has to be flanked by explanatory and ethical moves. What
49
For a summary of Jeanrond’s three-dimensional concept of interpretation, see Schmiedel,
‘(Instead of the) Introduction: Open to the Other,’ 1–16, esp. 2–6.
50
Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 110.
51
See Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language, trans.
R. Czerny (London: Routledge, 2003), 376–377. For a comprehensive account of Ricoeur’s
philosophy, see Bengt Kristensson Uggla, Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Interpretation
(London: Continuum, 2010). Particularly for Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, see Jeanrond,
Theological Hermeneutics, 70–76. Jeanrond explains how Ricoeur reworked the distinction
between primary and secondary naïveté through the concepts of ‘prefiguration,’ ‘configura-
tion’ and ‘refiguration’ (ibid., 191–192n. 92).
52
See Werner G. Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation as Categories of Theological Thinking,
trans. Thomas J. Wilson (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988), 68–71.
53
See ibid., 68–71, 74, 120–128. See also Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 113–117.
criterion could be used in these moves? Jeanrond’s pointer to the critique

of ideology is pertinent. He conceives of ‘ideology’ as the refusal to have
one’s prejudice challenged by one’s object of interpretation.54 Hence,
what I have described as ‘trust without doubt’ in fundamentalism and
‘doubt without trust’ in skepticism could be characterized as ideologies,
because both curtail the other: trust without doubt is obsessed with the
other’s identity, assuming the absolute knowability of the other; doubt
without trust is obsessed with the other’s alterity, assuming the absolute
unknowability of the other. In the ideologies of trust without doubt and
doubt without trust, then, the engagement with the other is stopped by
a prejudice which claims to be unchallenged and unchallengeable. These
ideologies prevent what Grøn calls ‘recognition’: seeing the other as other.
The ideological claims to both the absolute knowability of the other and
the absolute unknowability of the other, then, need to be criticized in the
practice of trust. The criterion for critique in the togetherness of trust is
that truster and trustee remain open to the other.
Overall, the construction of conditions which would have to be fulfilled
by the trustee in order for the truster to trust her results in a slippery
slope on which the truster slides from trust to distrust. The understand-
ing of identity which provokes trust in the insider and prevents trust in
the outsider is troubled by trust. Crucially, the risk inherent in trust can-
not be ruled out. The Jamesian jump—the prejudice of trust—cannot
be escaped; trust is, as James poignantly put it, previous, precursive and
preliminary. However, critique operates within trust rather than without
trust. In the togetherness of trust, hermeneutical practices are required to
identify the distortions of trust into distrust in which the otherness of the
other is confined or curtailed—either by the truster or by the trustee. The
togetherness of trust, then, allows for critical and self-critical reflections on
competing claims to truth.
The Truth of Trust

Can truth manifest itself in the togetherness of trust? Since the manifesta-
tion of truth is accessed through the detour of competing and conflicting
claims to truth,55 the togetherness of trust appears to stop the search for
54
Ibid., 5–6.
55
See Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press, 1974). In the chapter, ‘“As Books Should be Read”: Philosophy of Action and the
190 U. SCHMIEDEL
truth because the prejudice of trust presupposes that one is open to any
claim to the manifestation of truth. But appearances might be deceiving.
I will advocate for a construction of the hermeneutical notion of ‘truth as
manifestation’ through the categories of performativity and propositional-
ity.56 In critical conversation with Hans-Georg Gadamer, I will argue that
critical and self-critical reflections on competing truth claims are impera-
tive for the manifestation of truth in the togetherness of trust. Thus, I will
map the coupling of the rehabilitation of prejudice with the rehabilitation
of the critique of prejudice, called for by thinkers such as Jeanrond, onto
my conceptualization and concretization of the togetherness of trust.
To recall the analysis of John L. Austin’s speech act theory in Chap. 1:
Austin is interested in the distinction between language as a ‘describing’
of things (the locutionary force of language) and language as a ‘doing’
of things (the illocutionary force of language).57 For Austin, the concept
‘truth’ pertains to the describing rather than the doing. Performatives,
he argues, are neither true nor untrue. However, through the restric-
tion of the concept of truth to locutionary language, Austin buys into
the descriptive fallacy which he debunked. He himself reduces truth to
the propositional in contrast to the performative in order to criticize the
application of constative truth criteria to performances.58 The notion of
truth as manifestation, however, allows for a concept of performative truth
in which truth both ‘does’ things and ‘describes’ things.
It is well-known that Gadamer portrays ‘play (Spiel)’ as the site for the
manifestation of truth.59 Since play takes place in-between its players, it
cannot be reduced to either of them: ‘the primordial sense of playing is the
Death of the Author: Paul Ricoeur,’ in Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Globalization, 9–29,
Kristensson Uggla gives a succinct summary of Ricoeur’s understanding of the production
and the reception of texts within the conflict of interpretations.
56
The notion of truth as manifestation which is significant for hermeneutics can be traced
back to Martin Heidegger. For a succinct summary of notions of truth in the history of
hermeneutics, see Kristensson Uggla, Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Globalization, 32–40. I
have taken the term ‘truth as manifestation’ from David Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The
Interreligious Dialogue (Louvain: Peeters, 1990), 43–45.
57
Austin, How To Do Things With Words, 3.
58
See Matthias Petzoldt, ‘Wahrheit als Begegnung: Dialogisches Wahrheitsverständnis im
Licht der Analyse performativer Sprache,’ in Matthias Petzoldt, Christsein angefragt:
Fundamentaltheologische Beiträge (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1998), 25–50.
59
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 101–134. See also Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation as
Categories of Theological Thinking, 20–21.
medial one.’60 Gadamer argues that the play requires relations in-between
the players—relations which he depicts as ‘movement’ between the play-
ers.61 These movements cannot be methodologically controlled: the player
is not playing the game, but the game is playing the player. ‘Play fulfills its
purpose only if the player loses himself in the play.’62 With the concept of
play, then, Gadamer points to experiences which cannot be controlled by
the one who has these experiences.63 Drawing on Gadamer, the togeth-
erness of trust might be conceived of as play, especially since he stresses
the ‘risk’ which is inherent in any play.64 He even echoes James’s notion
of selfsurrender when he writes that the play ‘absorbs’ the players.65 The
togetherness of trust, then, resembles play: like play, trust is relational; like
play, trust can be controlled neither by the truster nor by the trustee; and
like play, trust requires eccentricity.
Only if the players let go of themselves, Gadamer argues, might truth
manifest itself in the ‘transformation’ of the players through the play.66
For Gadamer, this ‘transformation is a transformation into the true.’67
Truth, then, is neither objective nor subjective but takes place through the
play in-between the object of knowledge and the subject of knowledge.68
Gadamer employs the concept of recognition to point to the manifestation
of truth. ‘But what is recognition?’69 For Gadamer, the ‘joy of recogni-
tion’ is not ‘knowing’ but ‘knowing more.’70 Gaetano Chiurazzi summa-
rizes: ‘Truth is … more than reality. It is something that does not leave
reality as it is … but, on the contrary, … makes difference.’71 According to
60
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 103.
61
Ibid. Gadamer points to the etymology of Spiel which can be traced back to ‘dance,’ thus
emphasizing the movement in-between the players (ibid.).
62
Ibid., 102. See also Gaetano Chiurazzi, ‘Truth Is More Than Reality: Gadamer’s
Transformational Concept of Truth,’ Research in Phenomenology 41/1 (2011), 61.
63
Chiurazzi, ‘Truth,’ 61.
64
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 106.
65
Ibid., 105. Selfsurrender—to recall my analysis in Chap. 1—means the jump of the self
out of the self. Hence, selfsurrender is provoked by the play in which the players lose
themselves.
66
Ibid., 111. Gadamer refers to the ‘transformation into structure’ which is propelled by
play: ‘Thus transformation into structure means that what existed previously exists no longer.
But also that what now exists, what represents itself in the play …, is the … true’ (ibid.).
67
Ibid., 112.
68
See ibid., 102.
69
Ibid., 113.
70
71
Chiurazzi, ‘Truth,’ 69 (emphasis in the original).
192 U. SCHMIEDEL
Chiurazzi, Gadamer operates with ‘a transformational concept of truth.’72

In experiencing truth, a person recognizes that something is different—a
difference which has an impact on the subject of knowledge (the knower)
and on the object of knowledge (the known).73 Would it be too far-
fetched to describe the experience of truth with the terminology of Chap.
3—namely as the truth of the transformative transcendence of the other?74
In any case, for Gadamer, truth is a performative rather than a propo-
sitional concept: it is not describing things, it is doing things. Truth is
existential. However, as mentioned above, Gadamer marshals the existen-
tial concept of truth against the explanatory concept of truth75—a move
which has impacted the history of hermeneutics immensely.76 He asks the
players to dismiss their doubts for the sake of play: one must ‘expose one-
self consciously to the play which playfully expresses itself to us as truth.’77
Again, he agrees with James. James argues that interpersonal encounters
demonstrate that the direct knowledge one gains through relations differs
from the indirect knowledge one gains through reflections: relation per-
tains to existential acquaintance and reflection pertains to non-existential
analysis.78 Language points to the difference between these modes of
72
Ibid., 70.
73
Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation, 21, characterizes Gadamer’s concept of truth as
‘revelatory.’
74
For Gadamer, Truth and Method, 140, truth is ‘increase in Being (Zuwachs an Sein).’ He
explains it with reference to the Neoplatonic notion of emanation: ‘Essential to an emanation
is that what emanates is an overflow. What it flows from does not thereby become less … For
if the original One is not diminished by the outflow of the many from it, this means that
being increases’ (ibid.). See also Chiurazzi, ‘Truth,’ 66. Hence, Gadamer’s notion of trans-
formative truth differs from my notion of transformative transcendence which understands
transcendence functionally rather than substantially. However, the experience of transforma-
tive truth and the experience of transformative transcendence are strikingly similar: transfor-
mation implies the experience of a difference.
75
See Chiurazzi, ‘Truth,’ 70. Strangely, for Chiurazzi, the contrast between existential and
explanatory truth is not a cause for concern. He makes no mention of the critics of Gadamer
who called for a rehabilitation of the critique of prejudice in addition to the rehabilitation of
prejudice.
76
See Kristensson Uggla, Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Globalization, 32–40.
77
Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation, 21.
78
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, 216–218. For James’s pragmatic concept of
truth, see Hermann Deuser, ‘Zum Religions- und Wahrheitsbegriff bei William James,’ in
Religionsphilosophie: Historische Positionen und systematische Reflexionen, ed. Matthias Jung,
Michael Moxter and Thomas M. Schmidt (Würzburg: Echter, 2000), 151–164. Strikingly,
Deuser stresses that, for James, truth includes that which escapes complete conceptualization
(ibid., 162).
knowledge because, for James, it turns the direct immediate experience

into the indirect mediate expression; it turns relation into reflection; trust
into talk about trust.79 Countering the contamination of relation through
reflection, James, I have argued, seeks a pure performative: performativity
without propositionality. In contrast to James, Gadamer appreciates lan-
guage as a medium for the disclosure rather than the distortion of truth.80
Nonetheless, he follows the Jamesian proclivity for purification when he
rejects the application of criteria of truth such as correspondence, coher-
ence and consensus from the manifestation of truth.
As Jeanrond argues, Gadamer’s rejection is dangerous: ‘we must … ask
ourselves what exactly is being played here, what plays itself out through
us, what precisely is this process that playfully releases truth? … What cor-
roborates the conviction in us that we are not perhaps manipulated in a
playful manner?’81 In order to criticize the Gadamerian contrast between
the existential and the explanatory, Austin’s speech act theory is instructive.
From his survey of speech acts, he concludes that performativity and prop-
ositionality cannot be separated: performative speech acts speak through
propositional speech acts because every speech act has both illocutionary
and locutionary force.82 For Austin, there is no pure performative. Hence,
if ‘performativity’ pairs with the existential and if ‘propositionality’ pairs
with the explanatory, then Austin’s conclusion implies that the existential
and the explanatory are complementary rather than contradictory. If the
manifestation of truth, then, is characterized as performative, it allows—
pace Gadamer—for critical and self-critical reflections on competing claims
to truth. These reflections are not only not rejected, but required for the
manifestation of transformative truth.
In relation to the examination of ‘trust without doubt’ and ‘doubt
without trust,’ a claim to truth can come in two guises: either the knower
concentrates on the identity of the known (thus always already knowing
that it can know the other) or the knower concentrates on the alterity of
the known (thus always already knowing that it cannot know the other).
These claims to truth have strikingly similar consequences: whether one
79
James, The Principles of Psychology, 217.
80
See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 383–491. To James’s concept of language as a source
for the contamination of experience, Gadamer would respond: ‘It is from language as a
medium that our whole experience of the world … unfolds’ (ibid., 457, emphasis in the
original).
81
Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation, 21.
82
Austin, How To Do Things With Words, 101–102.
194 U. SCHMIEDEL
claims the complete knowability of the other (trust without doubt) or the
complete unknowability of the other (doubt without trust), the other is
controlled—confined to one’s concept of her. Thus, the other is incorpo-
rated into economies of exchange which cannot be challenged or changed
by the other. Hence, constructions of identity which keep the insider
inside are as dangerous as constructions of alterity which keep the outsider
outside. Both the critical and self-critical reflections on ideological claims
which control the other are indispensable to open these economies up to
the other. The manifestation of truth, then, requires the critique of ideol-
ogy in the togetherness of trust.
Overall, the claim to the complete knowability of the other is the
flipside of the claim to the complete unknowability of the other. Truth
manifests itself otherwise. Thus, truth requires the construction and the
destruction—the deconstruction—of claims to truth, deferring claims to
have fully and finally identified what is true.83 Austin’s combination of per-
formativity and propositionality saves the hermeneutical concept of truth
as manifestation from the contrast between the existential–performative
and the explanatory–propositional. Performative truth is open to both the
prejudice and to the critique of the prejudice.
Trust causes trouble in the construction of identity because it resists
closure. Openness to the other is indeed the condition for trust. The expo-
sure to the other opens up a space in which trust might emerge in the first
place. Only in the exposure to the other can the otherness of the other be
registered and respected—which is to say, recognized. Togetherness, then,
is a technique of trust. But the togetherness of trust does not rule out
suspicions. Instead, it evokes hermeneutical practices in which explanatory
moves and ethical moves complement the existential move of openness to
otherness. The existential move, the prejudice of trust, is indispensable for
the manifestation of transformative truth.
However, as my account of the manifestation of truth in terms of
Austin’s speech act theory has shown, critical and self-critical reflections
on competing claims to truth open ideological assertions up to the chal-
lenge of the other. Hence, the central criterion for the hermeneutical
practices which characterize the togetherness of trust is openness to the
otherness—existentially, explanatorily and ethically. In the togetherness
83
See again Chap. 1, where I summarized Jacques Derrida’s notion of deconstruction.
Tacitly, deconstruction also appears to run through Rowan William’s account of difference
and deferral in the practice of communication.
of trust, the otherness of each and every other is recognized as the site
for the manifestation of truth. To rule out the prejudice of trust through
constructs of identity and alterity which retain a strict insider/outsider
distinction would mean to rule out the possibility for the manifestation of
the truth in advance. But if one must not decide in advance whether the
other is or is not trustworthy, the risk of disappointment—the intentional
or unintentional betrayal of trust by the other—is unavoidable.84 Identity
cannot save the community from disappointment because the communal
practice of the togetherness of trust is not created by identity but identity
is created by the communal practice of the togetherness of trust. Thus,
trust calls for a turn to practice.
84
See David Jasper’s mesmerizing meditation on ‘betrayal’ at the center of community in
David Jasper, The Sacred Community: Art, Sacrament, and the People of God (Waco: Baylor
University Press, 2012), 31–44.
CHAPTER 8
The Power of Practice
Ecclesiology has turned to practice. According to Nicholas M. Healy,

ecclesiologists are increasingly interested in the church as it is practiced
rather than the church as it is preached.1 What lurks behind the turn to
practice is the insight into the performative power of practice.2 ‘Church’
cannot be designed on a drawing board because the construction of the
identity of Christianity requires the ‘lived’ practice of church more than
the ‘lived’ practice of the church requires the construction of the identity
of Christianity. Practice, then, is interpreted not as the consequence but as
the condition for identity.
In this chapter, I will investigate the turn to practice, considering three
ecclesiological examples. Cautioned by Healy,3 I will ask which concept of
1
Nicholas M. Healy, ‘Practices and the New Ecclesiology: Misplaced Concreteness?,’
International Journal for Systematic Theology 5/3 (2003), 287–308. Healy argues that the
turn to practice has characterized ecclesiologies in the last decade.
2
Michel Foucault pioneered the insight into the performative power of practice. Drawing
on structuralist studies, he showed that power is not necessarily attributed to active agents.
Instead, strategies and structures of power are at work in practices such that power produces
fields of knowledge, and is produced by fields of knowledge. Discipline and Punish: The Birth
of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979), is probably the study on the
performative power of practice. For a succinct summary of Foucault’s concept of power, see
Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace, A Foucault Primer: Discourse, Power and the Subject
(London: Routledge, 2002), 57–90.
3
Healy, ‘Practices,’ explores the concept of practice in Stanley Hauerwas’s and Reinhold
Hütter’s ecclesiologies. I have extended Healy’s critique of these concepts in Ulrich

198 U. SCHMIEDEL
practice is taken as a point of departure in these examples. I have chosen

the ecclesiologies of John Milbank, Pete Ward and Graham Ward for my
comparative investigation because all of them use the collapse of commu-
nity in contemporary culture as a point of departure for their ecclesiolo-
gies. While John Milbank assesses the collapse more negatively, advocating
the return from a ‘liquid identity’ to a ‘solid identity,’ Pete Ward assesses
the collapse more positively, affirming the turn from a ‘solid identity’ to
a ‘liquid identity.’4 I will argue that the propagation of ecclesial solidity
echoes Troeltsch’s sectarianism, while the propagation of ecclesial liquid-
ity echoes Troeltsch’s mysticism. Hence, both ecclesiologies close the
church off against the other even though they take practice as their point
of departure. After exploring the ecclesiology of solid identity (in step 1)
and the ecclesiology of liquid identity (in step 2), I will analyze Graham
Ward’s ecclesiology (in step 3). Graham Ward contends that alterity is at
the center of the practice of the body of Christ—a body which he maps
onto ecclesial and non-ecclesial practices. His ecclesiology frees itself from
the clutches of the chimera of a comprehensive community when it cul-
minates in the claim that the ‘assertion “I am a Christian” is not an iden-
tity statement.’5 Ward avoids the pitfalls of ecclesial solidity and ecclesial
liquidity, but he eventually envisions a ‘theocracy’ to govern the practices
of the body of Christ. The politics of power inherent in Ward’s turn to
theocracy, I will continue to argue, reintroduces the clash between iden-
tity and alterity which he at first rejected.6
Although the three ecclesiologies which exemplify the turn to prac-
tice continue the attack on alterity explored in Chaps. 4 and 5, they also
contribute to the elasticization of ecclesiology for which I have argued
throughout my study. Their contribution will be addressed in the follow-
ing and final chapter.
Schmiedel, ‘Praxis or Talk about Praxis? The Concept of Praxis in Ecclesiology,’ Ecclesial
Practices: Journal for Ecclesiology and Ethnography 3 (2016), 120–136, by arguing that John
Milbank exemplifies the postliberal turn to practice as a turn to the doctrine of practice rather
than practice, because Milbank draws neither on quantitative–empirical nor on qualitative–
empirical explorations of concrete churches. Here, I extend my critique of Milbank’s ecclesi-
ology in comparison to Pete Ward’s and Graham Ward’s ecclesiologies.
4
The metaphors of ‘liquidity’ and ‘solidity’ are inspired by Bauman’s sociology of Liquid
Modernity.
5
Graham Ward, Cities of God (London: Routledge, 2000), 259.
6
Ward, Politics, 294–302.
THE POWER OF PRACTICE 199
Solid Identity
According to John Milbank, dogmatics is church dogmatics.7 The practice
of church is the foundation of theology. But what is practice? Milbank
defines practice as a ‘mode of action’—strictly speaking, a ‘definite’ mode
of action—which forms and informs its practitioners.8 One cannot step
outside of practice; one can only switch from this mode of action (say
ecclesial practice) to that mode of action (say non-ecclesial practice). Since
there is no neutral position outside practice, the practice of churches offers
the only foundation for the reflection on churches.9
Milbank stresses that the foundation of practice is itself anti-
foundationalist. Following George A. Lindbeck, he clarifies how the con-
cept opposes the foundationalism of religious subjectivism and religious
objectivism.10 Yet, Milbank criticizes Lindbeck’s division of practice into a
material narrative, on the one hand, and a formal reflection on the mate-
rial narrative, on the other. Such a division results in the ahistoricity of the
narrative—‘narrativism,’ so to speak. Milbank emphasizes that a discourse
cannot operate as a foundation for a meta-discourse since the formal
impinges on the material as much as the material impinges on the formal.
Thus, Milbank extends the postliberal anti-foundationalism: practice cap-
tures both the material discursive action and the formal meta-discursive
reflection on the discursive action.11
According to Milbank, the task of theology is to identify the practice of
the church: here, the identification of what is church entails the identifica-
tion of what is non-church and the identification of what is non-church
entails the identification of what is church. Milbank is not concerned with
the ‘essence’ of this definite mode of action in contrast to the ‘essence’
of that definite mode of action; rather, he is concerned with the contrast
between these modes of action—church vis-à-vis non-church. He defines
church as ‘counter-society’: by definition, the exemplary practice of the
church counters the non-exemplary practice of the non-church.12 It could
be concluded that these practices are intricately interlinked, or—more
7
With reference to Karl Barth, John Milbank, Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon
(London: Routledge, 2003), 105–137.
8
Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 382.
9
Ibid., 382–383.
10
Ibid., 384–387. See Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, esp. 15–45.
11
12
Ibid., 390–440.
200 U. SCHMIEDEL
mischievously—that Milbank simply subsumes everything that he finds

destructive under the label ‘society’ and everything that he finds construc-
tive under the label ‘counter-society.’13 But Milbank qualifies the contrast
between church and non-church.
Following Alasdair MacIntyre’s communitarian account of
Aristotelianism,14 Milbank elaborates on why the contrast between the
practice of society and the practice of counter-society is due to the τέλος
of practice: a practice operates according to a goal. But whereas the non-
church sets goals (the attainment of which has to be enforced and re-
enforced), the goal of the church is a ‘goal beyond goal.’15 The goal of
the church is the church: church practices church.16 To clarify how church
practices church, ‘charity’ is important for Milbank. Christ offers the gift
of charity which is remembered by the church. The memories of Christ,
Milbank stresses in The Future of Love, ‘provide us—within the whole net-
work of tradition within which they belong—with a new language of com-
munity. The Christian claim is that the narratives about Christ show what
love … is.’17 Milbank emphasizes that the continuation of the narrative
is not a repetition but a response.18 Accordingly, he does not structure
the narrative of the church christologically—as if a christology could be
applied and re-applied—but ecclesiologically. This structure echoes his
critique of Lindbeck’s ‘narrativism.’ To act charitably, the church has to
enact charity practically and poetically.19 The enactment of charity requires
13
Edmund Arens, ‘Öffentliche oder gegenöffentliche Kirche? Ekklesiologische Konzepte
Politischer Theologie,’ in Extra Ecclesiam… Zur Institution und Kritik von Kirche, ed.
Henning Klingen, Peter Zeilinger and Michael Hölzl (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2013), 160–162.
14
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1985),
181–203.
15
Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 409, 422.
16
As Milbank explains in response to critique of his ecclesiology, the Eucharist exemplifies
the church practicing ‘church’ for him. John Milbank, ‘Enclaves, or Where is the Church?,’
New Blackfriars 73/861 (1992), 341–352.
17
Milbank, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (London: SCM, 2009), 337–351,
esp. 346. Here, Milbank seems to switch from the concept of charity to the concept of love
without reflecting on this switch. Crucially, he defines love as Christian love. For a concise
critique of the Christianization of love by the doctrinal discourses of Christianity, see
Jeanrond, A Theology of Love, 132–134.
18
Milbank, Future of Love, 347.
19
See ‘A Christological Poetics’ and ‘The Name of Jesus’ in John Milbank, The Word Made
Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 123–144 and 145–168.
For Milbank’s christological concept of ποίησις, see Steven Shakespeare, Radical Orthodoxy:
A Critical Introduction (London: SPCK, 2007), 72–79.
a faith which Milbank understands as ‘trust in the unknown.’20 With the

concept of trust, Milbank depicts faith not as securing, but as un-securing:
faith implies the acceptance of a ‘risk’—acceptance which finds ‘security in
the mode of hopeful delight in the unknown.’21
Finally, Milbank specifies charity as non-violence. Unsurprisingly,
the church’s non-violence is contrasted to the non-church’s violence.
Countering the non-church which violently enforces and re-enforces its
goals, the church non-violently enacts and re-enacts its goal-beyond-goal—
which is to say, charity. As a consequence, church ‘allows us to unthink
the necessity of violence.’22 According to Milbank, the un-thinking of vio-
lence requires that the church is itself the harmony of differences without
the harmonizing of differences.23 Milbank’s church—the definite ecclesial
mode of action vis-à-vis the definite non-ecclesial mode of action—edu-
cates its practitioners in a charitable way of life. The practitioners of the
ethics of counter-secularity in the church educate the practitioners of the
ethics of secularity in the non-church, thus enabling and equipping cul-
ture to overcome culture through church.24 When culture is converted by
church, it allows modernized and modernizing societies to go ‘beyond’
the collapse of community imposed by secularity.25
However, who composes the ecclesial harmony? Who constructs the
identity of church vis-à-vis the identity of non-church? For Milbank, the
consensus of the church decides what is church and what is non-church.
As ‘absolute consensus’ it is not a matter of compliance because it allows
20
21
Ibid., 154.
22
23
Ibid., 422: Literally, Milbank holds that ‘Christianity is … “differences in continuous
harmony”.’
24
John Milbank, ‘Education and Ethos: Beyond Romanticism and Enlightenment,’
Ecclesiology 9/3 (2013), 347–366.
25
The preposition ‘beyond’ is central to Milbank’s theological trilogy which envisions a
way of life beyond secularity. While his contrast of theology and sociology attempts to go
‘beyond secular reason,’ his contrast of theology and philosophy attempts to go ‘beyond
secular order.’ Milbank is working on a contrast of theology and the history of religion which
similarly takes the inception or invention of secularity as its point of departure. For a short
summary of his theological trilogy, see Milbank, Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of
Being and the Representation of the People (Chichester: Blackwell, 2014), 1–18. For Milbank,
the collapse of community is an effect of the secularity beyond which he would like to go.
See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 9: ‘Once there was no “secular”. … Instead, there
was the single community of Christendom.’
202 U. SCHMIEDEL
for differences in ideas and ideologies (otherwise it would violently

enforce and re-enforce compliance like the non-church).26 Milbank inter-
prets the consensus as an ‘event,’ emphasizing its performative rather than
its propositional quality.27 Nonetheless, Milbank’s recourse to the concept
of consensus begs the question of who composes church as opposed to
non-church. A consensus needs to be discerned. Who discerns it? Milbank
explains that the discernment is based on ‘the “sense”’ of the authenticity
or inauthenticity of the practice of church in contrast to the practice of
non-church; and such a sense ‘can only be acquired through the effort of
composition.’28 But, again, who composes the consensus?
Milbank stresses the significance of the practitioners in the church, past
and present, which is why the consensus of church is synchronic as well as
diachronic.29 Put plainly, church composes church. He explains that such a
circular composition is similar to a hermeneutics.30 However, what is cru-
cial is that Milbank’s hermeneutics is ‘safeguarded’ by what he identifies
as ‘ecclesiastical elite.’31 Effectively, Milbank envisions a mixture of democ-
racy, aristocracy and monarchy to govern practice, whereby ecclesial prac-
tice converts non-ecclesial practice into this mixed mode of government.
The mixture has to be saved and sustained against what Milbank assesses
as ‘the tyranny of mass opinion’—practice has to be policed by elites.32
By aligning (or realigning) the practice of church to the medieval Corpus
Christianum, he claims that the elite are ‘gathered around the bishops’
since the cathedra of the bishop is the spatial and temporal symbol of the
church’s consensus.33
Although Milbank admits that church has to prompt the ‘purging
of … excessive priestly dominance,’34 he offers no criterion to decide
26
Milbank, Being Reconciled, 128.
27
Ibid. However, Milbank does not elaborate on the evaluation of the consensus as a per-
formative (in contrast to a constative) consensus.
28
Milbank, Future of Love, 175–220, esp. 180.
29
Milbank, Being Reconciled, 123–126.
30
31
Milbank, Being Reconciled, 129 (my emphasis).
32
Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 254. Here, the combination of democracy, aristocracy
and monarchy of Being Reconciled is articulated as a combination of government through
‘the Many,’ ‘the Few’ and ‘the One’ (ibid., 9–10, 170–176, 247–254, 264–271), culminat-
ing in Milbank’s recommendation of constitutional monarchy as the most adequate and the
most appropriate mode of government today (ibid., 253).
33
Milbank, Being Reconciled, 123–130.
34
Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 256.
when such dominance has been turned from essential elitism to excessive
elitism. I wonder who could undertake such a ‘purge’? Who safeguards
the safeguards? Who polices the police? For Milbank, it is invariably the
ecclesiastical–episcopal elite which define church in contrast to non-
church.35 However, by identifying the safeguards of what counts as the
practice of church and non-church, Milbank interprets the practice of
concrete churches as an appendix to the doctrinal discourse of these safe-
guards. Hence, Milbank’s ecclesiology turns to the doctrine of practice
instead of practice.
The discrepancy between practice and talk about practice follows
from Milbank’s concept of identity.36 For Milbank, identity is not a con-
sequence of the practice of church but a condition for the practice of
church: identity is applied as a criterion for authentic or inauthentic prac-
tice. However, Milbank’s ideal(ization) of church vis-à-vis non-church
ignores that practitioners might conceive of practice differently from who-
ever or whatever claims to be the ecclesiastical–episcopal elite. Since prac-
titioners are members of a multitude of definite or not-so-definite modes
of action,37 the practice of church is inevitably infused with the practice of
non-church.38 Practitioners, therefore, might not characterize the identity
of Christianity in terms of the contrast between non-violent church and
violent non-church. Milbank acknowledges that the distinction between
different modes of action is not easily drawn—and yet he draws it accord-
ing to the criterion of identity.39 Thus, Milbank’s ecclesiology constructs
35
According to the ‘Introduction’ to Milbank’s The Word Made Strange, today, ‘theology
is tragically too important. For all the current talk of a theology that would reflect on prac-
tice, the truth is that we remain uncertain as to where today to locate true Christian practice
… In his or her uncertainty as to where to find this, the theologian feels almost that the entire
ecclesial task falls on his own head’ (ibid., 1). Hence, one might wonder whether Milbank
considers himself to be the (or a part of the) ecclesiastical–episcopal elite. Also, who, I won-
der, called Milbank’s ‘theologian’ to tragically fulfill the ‘entire ecclesial task’?
36
See Schmiedel, ‘Praxis or Talk about Praxis?’
37
See Tanner, Theories of Culture, 93–119. For the intersection of intra- and inter-religious
practice, see also Werner G. Jeanrond, ‘Belonging or Identity? Christian Faith in a Multi-
Religious World,’ in Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity
(Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), 106–107.
38
See Healy, ‘Ecclesiology, Ethnography, and God,’ 191–193. See also Healy, ‘Practices,’
292–293.
39
See Tanner, Theories of Culture, 97. It is noteworthy that Shakespeare, Radical
Orthodoxy, 102–107, points to passages in which Milbank seems to open ecclesiology to
critiques from the inside as well as from the outside. However, ultimately, the openness to
(self)critique is curtailed by Milbank’s ecclesiastical elite.
204 U. SCHMIEDEL
the identity of what is church at the expense of the identity of what is

non-church as demonstrated by the use of binaries, such as ‘church versus
non-church’ and ‘charity versus non-charity’ or ‘non-goal versus goal’ and
‘non-violence versus violence.’40 What follows is that, for Milbank, the
ecclesiastical elite make the practice of church the practice of church.
According to Milbank, whoever and whatever is non-church, is ‘on
the path of damnation.’41 Salvifically, the non-violent counter-society
counters the violent society. But, as Graham Ward indicates, the coun-
tering of violence through non-violence runs the risk of turning into
violence itself.42 Milbank anticipates and admits this risk: to counter non-
Christians, Christians have to ‘coerce’ non-Christians into Christianity.43
Yet, according to Milbank, the interpretation of coercion is dependent
on one’s perspective: from a non-Christian perspective, it is a demonstra-
tion of power; but from a Christian perspective, it is a demonstration of
peace. Milbank claims that since there is no neutral position outside of
practice, a person realizes how she was persuaded by truth—‘“truly” per-
suaded’44—only through turning from the non-ecclesial perspective to the
ecclesial perspective.45 Hence, coercion can be retrospectively ‘redeemed’
by the coerced.46 Thus, Milbank is consistent when he proclaims the ‘end
of dialogue’ between what (according to the elite) is Christian and what
(according to the elite) is non-Christian.47
To summarize, Milbank’s ecclesiology entails the neutralization of the
other. Through the ecclesiastical–episcopal elite, alterity is allocated to the
exterior of church, while identity is allocated to the interior of church.
40
For a detailed discussion of the charge of ‘dualism’ against Radical Orthodoxy, see
Shakespeare, Radical Orthodoxy, 150–159.
41
42
Graham Ward, ‘John Milbank’s Divina Comedia,’ New Blackfriars 73/861 (1992),
311–318. See also Romand Coles, ‘Storied Others and Possibilities of Caritas: Milbank and
Neo-Nietzschean Ethics,’ Modern Theology 8/4 (1992), 331–351. For a comprehensive and
critical analysis of the role of violence in Milbank’s theology, see Scott MacDougall,
‘Scapegoating the Secular: The Irony of Mimetic Violence in the Social Theology of John
Milbank,’ in Violence, Transformation, and the Sacred, ed. Margaret R. Pfeil and Tobias
L. Winright (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2011), 85–98.
43
Milbank repeatedly refers to ‘coercion’ in his ecclesiology. See esp. the section
‘Christianity and Coercion’ in Theology and Social Theory, 423–429.
44
Milbank, ‘Enclaves, or Where is the Church?,’ 348 (my emphasis).
45
Ibid., 348–349.
46
47
See the chapter, ‘The End of Dialogue,’ in Future of Love, 279–300. See also, Shakespeare,
Radical Orthodoxy, 110–116.
Milbank attempts to guarantee that the practice of church counters the

practice of non-church. Practice is indeed a definite mode of action for him:
defining who is in and who is out. Therefore, the choice to enter or not
to enter the practice of church is retrospectively masked. Thus, Milbank’s
attempt falls prey to what my analysis of Troeltsch’s typology exposed as sec-
tarianism. Sectarianism is marked by the separation of inside and outside—a
separation which is the core characteristic of what Bauman assessed as the
anthropoemic neutralization of alterity. However, if trust in the transforma-
tive transcendence of the other is at the core of Christianity, the anthropo-
emic neutralization of the other counters what Christianity is about.
Liquid Identity
According to Pete Ward, too, dogmatics is church dogmatics.48 He
endorses Milbank’s argument that there is no neutral position outside of
practice.49 However, he is ‘a little uneasy’ with Milbank’s reduction of
practice to either theological or non-theological discourse.50 For Ward,
both ecclesial and non-ecclesial practice is ‘much more than’ discourse.51
He argues that theology cannot abandon sociology and sociology cannot
abandon theology when the practices of churches are at stake.52
Ward stresses that sociological surveys have shown that Christians and
non-Christians alike seek spirituality outside rather than inside church-
es.53 He draws on studies such as The Spiritual Revolution in which Linda
48
See Pete Ward, Participation and Mediation: A Practical Theology for the Liquid Church
(London: SCM, 2009), 17, where theology—strictly speaking, ‘practical theology’—is
defined as critical and constructive reflection on the practice of churches.
49
Ibid., 19.
50
Ibid., 20.
51
Ibid.
52
Ward combines ecclesiology and ethnography to counter the reduction of practice to
theological or non-theological discourse. For a short summary, see Pete Ward, ‘Attention
and Conversation,’ in Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography, 36–49. See also Paul
S. Fiddes and Pete Ward, ‘Affirming Faith at a Service of Baptism in St Aldates Church,
Oxford,’ in Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography, ed. Christian B. Scharen (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 51–70. The combination of theology and sociology is affirmed
autobiographically. In his work as a youth minister, Ward has aimed to turn the practice of
church ‘upside down,’ because (youth) ministry is not about bringing people to the territory
of the church, but about bringing the territory of the church to people (Ward, Participation
and Mediation, 27).
53
Ibid., 14. See also Sarah Dunlop and Pete Ward, ‘From Obligation to Consumption in
Two-and-a-half Hours: A Visual Exploration of the Sacred with Young Polish Migrants,’
206 U. SCHMIEDEL
Woodhead and Paul Heelas defined the ‘subjectivization thesis’ in order to

examine the features and facets of spirituality in contemporary culture.54
Utilized in both accounts of the secularization of culture and accounts of
the sacralization of culture, ‘spirituality,’ they argue, is a contested con-
cept.55 Rooted in their empirical exploration of ecclesial and non-ecclesial
spiritualities in Kendal, a town in Cumbria, England, the subjectivization
thesis seeks to make sense of the controversy of secularization versus sacral-
ization. It does so by elaborating on a turn to the subject which displays
a shift in the location of authority from the external to the internal, from
the objective to the subjective.56 As a consequence of the subjectivization
of contemporary culture, spiritual seekers assume community to be shaped
by the subject rather than the subject to be shaped by community.57 Ward
argues that in order to accept and accommodate spiritual seekers after
the spiritual revolution, ecclesiology requires a shift from the paradigm of
‘solid church’ to the paradigm of ‘liquid church.’58 Accordingly, in con-
trast to Milbank, Ward assumes that the core concern of ecclesiology is
not a church which converts culture, but a culture which converts church.
Practice is important for Ward’s ecclesiology. Ultimately, he under-
stands church as a conglomerate of ‘signifying practices.’59 Ward refers
to practices which allow practitioners to make meaning. Participation in
these practices—such as singing a Christian song, to take one of Ward’s
examples—enables spiritual seekers to learn the language of the symbols
and the signs of Christianity.60 Accordingly, signifying practices allow for
‘shared communication’ of symbolic signs among Christians, thus starting
and sustaining relationships.61 Again, Ward agrees with Milbank’s ecclesi-
ology: practice is at the center of ecclesiology. Yet while Milbank sees the
center as definite, Ward sees the center as indefinite. Correspondingly,
Ward criticizes the concentration of ecclesiology on the clear-cut category
Journal of Contemporary Religion 27/3 (2012), 433–451.

54
Heelas and Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution.
55
Ibid., 1–2.
56
Ibid., 1–11.
57
See ibid., 11, where ‘subjectivization’ is distinguished from ‘individualization’: ‘For, as
we will see, above all else subjective-life spirituality is “holistic,” involving a self-in-relation
rather than a self-in-isolation.’
58
Pete Ward, Liquid Church (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), 17. For Ward’s account of the
subjectivization thesis, see Ward, ‘Attention and Conversation,’ 42–43.
59
Ward, Participation and Mediation, 71.
60
Ibid.
61
Ibid., 72.
of congregation: ‘Congregation characterizes solid church. By congrega-

tion I mean the tendency to emphasize one central meeting. Usually this
meeting is a worship service held weekly on a Sunday morning.’62 Since
the congregation stresses a spirituality of ‘standardization’ rather than a
spirituality of de-standardization,63 it loses touch with the spirituality in
contemporary culture. Ward argues that the contrast between church and
culture is indeed the core concern of the congregation which looks inward
as opposed to outward.64 Through the paradigm shift from solid to liquid
ecclesiology, then, he tries to turn ecclesiologies around, looking outward
as opposed to inward—to the spiritual seekers.
Ward marshals christological and theological arguments for his turn.65
Referring to the ecclesiology of Paul, he reflects on the main metaphor
of ἐν Χριστῷ.66 According to Ward, this metaphor allows for the alterna-
tive between ‘in Christ’ and ‘in Church’—an alternative which Milbank’s
account of practice rejected by arguing that church is connected to Christ
as much as Christ is connected to Church: the church is where one can
connect to Christ. For Ward, however, ‘believers are one with each other
because they are joined to Christ. The temptation is to reverse these pri-
orities, so that by being joined to the church one is joined to Christ.’67
Hence, countering ecclesiologies where practice is construed ecclesio-
logically rather than christologically, Ward argues that ecclesiology ought
to resist this temptation in order to make ‘room for new ways of being
church.’68
These new ways of being church are reflected in what Ward articulates
as ‘The Liquid Dance of God.’69 He retrieves the concept of περιχώρησις
from Paul S. Fiddes’s Trinitarian theology in order to prioritize the
dynamic over the static in the concept of God70: ‘The dancing flow of
62
Ward, Liquid Church, 17.
63
Ibid., 19.
64
Ibid., 26–30.
65
See Kees de Groot, ‘The church in liquid modernity: A sociological and theological
exploration of a liquid church,’ International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church
6/1 (2006), 92.
66
Ward, Liquid Church, 33–39.
67
Ibid., 36.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid., 49–55.
70
See esp. Paul S. Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (London:
DLT, 2000).
208 U. SCHMIEDEL
relationship is open-ended, thus drawing us into its current.’71 The result

of Ward’s theology is the ‘vision of a church as network of relationships.’72
The theology of the Trinity undergirds the liquefaction of church, the
criterion of which is not ‘congregation’ but ‘communication.’73
Ward elucidates the sharing of communication with the two core con-
cepts of his ecclesiology: ‘participation’ and ‘mediation.’ Participation in
the flow of communication means mediating the flow to others; mediating
the flow to others means participation in the flow of communication.74
Thus, participation and mediation of the flow are assessed as techniques
or tools for ‘identity formation.’75 According to Ward, Christians become
Christians through their incorporation into the flow of communica-
tion76; for example, the creation and consumption of the songs written
by Christian singer-songwriters.77 The doctrine of the Trinity allows for
a notion of God as participation and mediation which ‘means that the
cultural expression of the Church is seen as a place of divine encounter.’78
Through incorporation into the flow of communication—like listening to
Christian singer-songwriters—Christians encounter and experience God.
Ward argues that participation and mediation of the flow of communica-
tion cannot ‘be reduced to attendance at worship.’79 To escape the focus
on the congregation, he coins the concept of ‘theological capital’80 which
is accumulated ‘in the context of an active sharing in the communication
of the Church’—communication which is disseminated both inside and
outside of congregations.81 Hence, with or without attendance at the wor-
ship of a congregation, Christians can accumulate the theological capital
which ‘has a transforming impact’ on them.82
71
Ward, Liquid Church, 53–54. See also Ward, Participation and Mediation, 24–26.
72
73
Ibid., 87.
74
Ibid., 93–134.
75
Ibid., 78.
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid., 81–92, 150–167. See also Pete Ward, Selling Worship: How What We Sing Has
Changed the Church (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2005)
78
79
Ibid., 119.
80
Ibid., 118–119. The concept of theological capital is defined in conversation with Pierre
Bourdieu. See Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1990), esp. the chapter on ‘Symbolic Capital,’ 112–121.
81
82
Ibid.
But how can churches foster and facilitate the accumulation of theolog-
ical capital outside as opposed to inside congregations? Ward’s provocative
response is: ‘commodification.’83 ‘It is provocative to use the language
of consuming and commodities, but it is deliberate, because it points
toward my main motivation for suggesting why we need a new pattern
in church life: mission.’84 Accordingly, Ward’s shift from the paradigm of
solid church to the paradigm of liquid church amounts to the affirmation
of contemporary consumer culture in the church.85 But, for Ward, affir-
mation of contemporary culture is not necessarily selling or selling-out the
church. He stresses that ‘regulating the flow’ is indispensable.86 The crite-
rion for the regulation is anchored in what he labels ‘the Christian story,’
a story which, for Ward, stays the same, even if it is expressed differently
under different circumstances.87 While Milbank constructs the identity
of the church through ecclesiastical elites which safeguard the Christian
story, Ward constructs the identity of the church through the Christian
story. Although Ward never tells this story in detail, he is convinced that
it ‘connects the liquid church to its theological roots. A commitment to
orthodoxy provides assurance in the midst of the flow.’88
The community which characterizes Ward’s liquefaction of church
revolves around the Christian story, albeit in communication as opposed
to congregation. Hence, ‘constant communication’ which includes
both virtual and non-virtual means is vital for the participation and the
mediation of the Christian story.89 To facilitate constant communication,
churches ‘Christianize’ contemporary consumer culture. Accordingly, the
liquefaction of church implies the intake of culture into church rather than
the intake of church into culture.
In his sociological and theological critique of the Liquid Church, Kees
de Groot identifies the implications of Ward’s liquefaction of church:
‘The possibility that capitalism would turn … relationships … into com-
modities was the ultimate nightmare for Marxists but Ward welcomes this
process.’90 According to de Groot, Ward’s assumption is that the church
83
84
Ibid., 3. See also Kees de Groot, ‘The church,’ 93.
85
Ward, Liquid Church, 56–57.
86
Ibid., 65–71, 78–89.
87
Ibid., 70.
88
Ibid., 71.
89
Ibid., 88.
90
Kees de Groot, ‘The church,’ 93.
210 U. SCHMIEDEL
ought to fit into culture in order to accommodate spiritual seekers. Since

mission is the core concern for Ward’s church, it is clear how the church
benefits from such accommodation. It is unclear, however, how the seek-
ers benefit.91 De Groot insists that, instead of accommodating contem-
porary culture, Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology—the sociology which has
inspired Ward’s liquid church—ought to provoke theology to reconsider
its interpretation of community and society.92
However, in Participation and Mediation: A Practical Theology for the
Liquid Church, Ward argues that ‘the Church adopts culture in order to
communicate and connect, but as it does so it must also seek to adapt
… the culture in which it is situated.’93 According to Ward, the Jesus
Movement exemplifies the process of adaption as ‘it had a decisive impact
on the culture of contemporary Church both in the UK and in the USA.’94
Its impact has been decisive because it created a ‘subcultural style’ in the
communication of the Christian story.95 Hence, even if Ward focuses on
the change of church through culture rather than the change of culture
through church—the Jesus Movement exemplifies how culture converted
church—de Groot’s critique might be too sweeping. In principle, Ward
affirms the critique of culture through church as much as he affirms the
critique of church through culture. His ecclesiology is an attempt to
understand both of these critiques through empirical explorations. For
Ward, the practices of concrete churches have to be taken into account.
He is interested in practice rather than the doctrine of practice; abstract
condemnations of consumerist culture through church, or of church
through consumerist culture, would distort his ethnographical–ecclesio-
logical accounts of practice.96
91
Ibid., 99.
92
Ibid., 98. De Groot argues that Ward takes the ‘the sting’ out of Bauman’s sociology.
93
94
Ibid., 143. For Ward’s analysis of the Jesus Movement, see also Ward, Selling Worship.
95
Ward, Participation and Mediation, 143–144, 151–167.
96
See Pete Ward, ‘Blueprint Ecclesiology and the Lived: Normativity as a Perilous
Faithfulness,’ Ecclesial Practices 2/1 (2015), 74–90. He argues that the practice of church
has a ‘gravitational pull’ (ibid., 76). This gravitational pull is exemplified by his comparison
of two ecclesiologies which take the doctrine of the Trinity as their point of departure.
Although both center their ecclesiology in the same doctrine, they arrive at different ecclesi-
ologies: one emphasizing and one de-emphasizing the significance of the hierarchy for the
church (ibid., 70–77). The difference in their emphases, Ward argues, is easily explained if
one considers the churches to which the two ecclesiologists belong. The gravitational pull of
church, then, has a significant impact on how one understands church.
However, the communities of communication which Ward envisions

are ‘communities of choice.’97 Both the construction and the consumption
of certain styles of cultural or subcultural communication make the com-
munity a community. But if a community is established in the choice of a
style—according to one’s taste in different Christian singer-songwriters,
for example—it becomes self-selective and self-selecting.98 Ward antici-
pates this critique:
A potential criticism of churches as a self-selecting group is that such a group

will be less socially diverse … But most churches are already fairly limited in
the kinds of people they gather. Communities based around choice could
bring a wide diversity together precisely because they are based on shared
interest.99
Ward’s argument is plausible. If the solid church is characterized by self-

selection, self-selection cannot be marshaled as a critique against the shift
from the solid to the liquid church. However, he neglects that the neu-
tralization of the other which follows from self-selection might invalidate
both of these paradigms, the solid and the liquid, thus exposing the alter-
native as a false alternative.
To summarize, Ward’s ecclesiology eventually entails the neutral-
ization of the other. By concentrating on the commodification of the
Christian story, the other is placed simultaneously on the inside and the
outside of church. But since the Christian story is never told, it is almost
impossible to identify whether it makes a difference to ecclesial or non-
ecclesial practice. Thus, the practice of the church rather confirms than
counters the practice of the non-church. Ward’s practice, then, is indeed
an indefinite practice: it defines neither who is in nor who is out. Instead
of engaging with the other—how the other resonates with, or resists,
the story—the otherness of the other is deemed irrelevant as long as she
favors the same style of storytelling. Therefore, the choice to enter or
not to enter the practice of church is not retrospectively masked, but
retrospectively unmasked. Since one can choose this style today and that
style tomorrow, church comes without commitment. Thus, Ward’s eccle-
siology falls prey to what my analysis of Troeltsch’s typology exposed
97
98
99
212 U. SCHMIEDEL
as mysticism. Troeltsch’s mysticism is marked by the combination of

inside and outside—a combination which is also the core characteristic
of what Bauman assesses as the anthropophagic neutralization of alterity.
However, if trust in the transformative transcendence of the other is at
the core of Christianity, the anthropophagic neutralization of the other
counters what Christianity is about.
The Politics of Power

Graham Ward’s account of theology offers a subtle but significant alterna-
tive to the practice of a solidified church which counters culture and the
practice of a liquefied church which confirms culture. In Cities of God,
Ward argues that contemporary culture is both a challenge and a chance
for theology ‘in the face of unprecedented social atomism.’100 Hence,
Ward also assumes a collapse of community in contemporary culture,
although his assumption is not rooted in the comparison of a past com-
prehensive community with a present collapsing community—he would
consider such comparisons ‘nostalgia,’ phantoms which haunt the percep-
tion of the present.101 Countering the accounts of ecclesial solidity and
ecclesial liquidity above, Ward carefully complicates the relation between
church and culture. For Ward, there ‘is no pure theological discourse.’102
Theologians must neither completely disconnect nor completely con-
nect church and culture.103 Instead, they have to explore critically and
constructively how culture resonates with, or indeed resists, church and
how church resonates with, or indeed resists, culture in order to examine
possibilities and impossibilities for the construction of a Christian ‘world-
view’ in contemporary culture.104 ‘World-view’ means a way of seeing the
world. The concept of Deutung (as analyzed in Chap. 3) could be applied
100
Ward, Cities, ix.
101
Ward’s interpretation of the collapse of community is somewhat confusing. In Cities of
God, he appears to assume that the ‘Christendom’ of the past actually entailed a comprehen-
sive community (ibid., 237, 257). However, in ‘Linearity and Complexity in Ecclesiology,’
in Extra Ecclesiam, 99–130, he argues that if one idealizes medieval Christianity as compre-
hensive community, one runs the risk of being haunted by ‘the phantoms of nostalgia’ (ibid.,
126). Ward, Politics, also argues that the notion of church as a network of relations is not
premodern, modern or postmodern, but characteristic of the church throughout history
(ibid., 203–204, n. 32).
102
Ward, Cities, 14–15.
103
Ibid., 7–9, 43–51, 69–70.
104
Ibid., 9–14.
to Ward’s worldview since he stresses that such a seeing would have to be

‘weak’: recognizing a plurality of world-views in constant conversation.105
The ‘body’ is the core concept of Ward’s construction of a Christian
world-view,106 a world-view which aims to allow its adherents to see the
world analogically, as participating in God.107 Ward’s analogical world-view
proceeds from ‘the ontological scandal’ of ‘transcorporeality’ in the body
of Jesus Christ.108 To explore transcorporeality, he traces the displacement
of Jesus’s body through the moments and motifs of incarnation, circumci-
sion, transfiguration, resurrection and ascension.109 His central concern is
the (memorization of the) breaking of the body of Christ in the Eucharist.
‘“Take, eat, this is my body.” The shock-wave in these words emerges
from the depth of an ontological scandal; the scandal of that “is”.’110 That
‘is’ which connects ‘bread’ and ‘body’ performs transcorporeality.111
With transcorporeality … the body does not dissolve or ab-solve, it expands

en Christo. While always located within a specific sociological and historical
context, it nevertheless is continually being opened up, allowing itself to
open up, in acts of following which affect the transferral, the transduction.
Transcorporeality is an effect of following in the wake of the eternal creative
Word. Discipleship becomes transfiguring.112
Drawing conclusions from the ontological scandal of the transcorporeality

of the body of Christ, Ward argues that in ‘the brokenness of the transcor-
poreal body God’s grace operates through his creation.’113 He emphasizes
the fracture—the moment in the Eucharist when the priest breaks the
bread-as-body—as the essential element of his ecclesiology: ‘Participation
follows from fragmentation; only on the basis of the broken body of Christ
105
Ibid., 17–21 with reference to Gianni Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation: The Meaning of
Hermeneutics for Philosophy, trans. David Webb (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997).
106
Ward, Cities, 23.
107
‘Analogy’ is a core category for Ward. In a Platonic or Platonizing approach, he argues
that ‘[a]nalogy as ana-logical is theologically frightened’ because it points to the participa-
tion of the creator in the creation and the creation in the creator while retaining the differ-
ence between creator and creation. See esp. ibid., ix.
108
Ibid., 81.
109
Ibid., 97–116.
110
Ibid., 82.
111
Ibid., 92.
112
Ibid., 95.
113
Ibid., 95–96.
214 U. SCHMIEDEL
can the distribution of that body be effected. The fracturing here is posi-
tive, not negative.’114 According to Ward, this fracture is taken up by the
church as the broken body of Christ. Both the christological body and the
ecclesiological body are to be ‘broken like the bread, to be food dispersed
throughout the world.’115
The corollary of this fracture is what Ward calls the ‘erotic commu-
nity’ which ‘is itself a fractured and fracturing community.’116 With the
help of the concepts of ‘erotic’ and ‘erotics,’ he points to the desire at
work in the broken body. Here, he emphasizes how the body of Christ
engages with internal and external others: ‘Desire issues from difference
… Difference can only be difference because it stands in relation to that
which is other.’117 Because of the relationality at the core of the broken
body, the body of Christ counters the ‘logic of privation’118 which char-
acterizes modern and postmodern practices of desire as Ward’s survey of
the sex shop demonstrates.119 In order to counter the practices which are
rooted in the logic of privation, the institutional churches are vital: ‘Only
as institutions can they offer places for the organisation of a different kind
of space, a liturgical space.’120 Consequently, the liturgy—started and sus-
tained by the institutions of church—is the point of departure for the
practice of love in ecclesial and non-ecclesial bodies. However, although
started and sustained by the institution, the liturgy cannot be confined or
controlled by it.
The institutional churches are necessary, but they are not ends in them-
selves; they are constantly transgressed by … an erotic community … The
body of Christ desiring its consummation opens itself to what is outside the
institutional Church; offers itself to perform in fields of activity far from
chancels and cloisters.121
114
Ibid., 152.
115
Ibid., 112.
116
Ibid., 154.
117
Ibid., 172.
118
Ibid., 77.
119
Ibid., 118–120. See also his analyses of interpretations and applications of ‘desire’ since
Sigmund Freud in ibid., 52–78 and 117–151.
120
Ibid., 177.
121
Ibid., 180.
According to Ward, then, the practice of love spills out of the liturgy of
the churches, from church to culture and from culture to church. There
is no ecclesiastical or episcopal elite which could keep ‘identity’ inside and
‘alterity’ outside.122 ‘What is loved in love is difference.’123
Thus, the practice of love implies recognition and respect for the other:
‘The Church must sanctify difference, must … discern difference in all the
relationships it sanctifies. For it is from difference that the Church receives
the power to be and participate in the power to become.’124 Thus, identity
is infused with alterity and alterity is infused with identity. Ward rejects the
communitarianism of confessional communities which he traces back to
the academy of the 1980s and the 1990s.125 He insists that what is church
cannot be modeled in contrast to what is non-church because ecclesial and
non-ecclesial ‘boundaries cannot be patrolled.’126
Christianity, the practice of the faith that I can speak for or from, comes
in a diversity of forms … The interdependence and interrelationality of all
things, which is what I have argued for throughout …, cannot defend the
walls of some medieval notion of Christendom. Christendom is over; and
with it Christian hegemony.127
Christians, then, ‘these physical bodies that every day or every week or
every month or every year partake of the eucharistic body, belong to vari-
ous ecclesial bodies, view … their lives with respect to dwelling in the body
of Christ.’128 It is such a view of their lives, such a Christian world-view,
which allows them to take account of culture in church and of church in
culture: analogically, then, both church and culture participate in God
through Christ.
Ward’s ecclesiology of the emerging and emergent church is thus opened
to the ‘possibilities of performances of Christ beyond any idolisation of
122
See esp. Graham Ward, ‘Performing Christ: The Theological Vocation of Lay People,’
Ecclesiology 9/3 (2013), 323–334, which could be read as a critique of Milbank’s notion of
the ecclesiastical–episcopal elite, although Milbank is not mentioned.
123
Ward, Cities, 201.
124
Ibid., 202.
125
Ibid., 247, where he mentions Alasdair MacIntyre and George A. Lindbeck on whom
John Milbank is drawing. However, again, Milbank is not mentioned.
126
Ibid.
127
Ibid., 257.
128
Ibid.
216 U. SCHMIEDEL
Christianity.’129 Its emphasis on ‘participation’ counters the ‘atomism’ of

contemporary culture through both ecclesial and non-ecclesial perfor-
mances of the broken body of Christ.130 According to Ward, Christians
‘belong to a community that is open-ended.’131 And because the body
of Christ is open-ended, ‘there is no room for Christian imperialism’;
eschatology and ecclesiology make the community a community which
engages with the other, resisting the neutralization of alterity.132 The body
of Christ cannot ‘coerce’133 the other through either anthropoemic exclu-
sion or anthropophagic inclusion, because the assertion
‘I am a Christian’ is not an identity statement. For my intellectual grasp

upon what it is to be a Christian is weak … I follow. I do not know what it
is I say when I say ‘Christ.’ I give myself over to that which I have come to
recognise is more than I.134
Here, Ward pushes his ecclesiology of the broken body of Christ to the
extreme: alterity—the ‘more’ of the ultimately unknown—is anchored
in (the body of) Christ. Ecclesiology which accepts the alterity of Christ
weakens the identity of Christianity, making room for alterity in the body
of Christ, for alterity in ecclesial bodies as well as for alterity in non-
ecclesial bodies. Through these bodies, the erotic community which is
sustained in the fracture of the Eucharist practices its desire for difference:
bodies participate in bodies, each and every body participates in God. For
Ward, it is the task of the theologian to keep the Christian world-view
of participation alive either along the lines of contemporary culture or
against the lines of contemporary culture, because the Christian world-
view of participation, started and sustained in the liturgies of churches,
enables hope—a hope which fuels political projects in the face of unprec-
edented social atomism.135 In The Politics of Discipleship, Ward zooms in
on these political projects. Crucially, he points out that his ‘ecclesiology
129
Ward, ‘Linearity and Complexity in Ecclesiology,’ 128.
130
Ward, Cities, 75. Throughout, he uses ‘practice’ and ‘performance’ interchangeably.
See also Ward, ‘Performing Christ,’ 323–334.
131
Ward, Cities, 258.
132
Ibid., 259.
133
Ibid. Again, Ward’s critique of coercion could be read as a critique of John Milbank,
although Milbank is not mentioned.
134
Ibid.
135
Ibid., 259–260.
maps on to what Pete Ward describes as the liquid church.’136 However,

he restricts the congruence between these two ecclesiologies, pointing out
that the concept of the church as a ‘network of relationships’ has been the
character of the church throughout history. Thus, it is not necessary to
understand church along the lines of contemporary consumerism, mar-
shaling the non-institutional liquid against the institutional solid.137
The Politics of Discipleship is not ‘polite’ but ‘political.’138 It conceives
of the church as a political player in contemporary culture, stressing that
the church, as ‘a vast network of interrelations posing what Paul terms a
body or a building,’ cannot accept a clear-cut distinction between what
is church and what is non-church.139 But it is nonetheless called to act
politically. To account for these acts, Ward analyzes contemporary culture.
The core concept for his analysis is the preposition ‘post,’140 although he
points out that this preposition ‘does not help us to characterize accu-
rately the contents of the shift’ from the modern to the postmodern.141 He
concentrates on the shift from the secular to the postsecular which char-
acterizes contemporary culture.142 Since the philosophical and theological
thinkers who assume such a shift do not offer clear-cut definitions of it,143
Ward provides a comprehensive analysis of what he calls the ‘resurgence
of religion.’144
Exploring three examples of the new (or not so new) visibility of reli-
gion, Ward points out that ‘religion is currently dominating the public
sphere at all levels.’145 This dominance is due to a ‘resurgence of religion’: a
136
Ward, Politics, 203n. 32.
137
See ibid., 203–204n. 32. Ward borrows the concept of network from Bruno Latour’s
Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005). See Ward, Politics, 202n. 31.
138
Ibid., 21.
139
Ibid., 28.
140
See also Graham Ward, ‘Theology and Postmodernism: Is It All Over?,’ Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 80/2 (2012), 466–484.
141
142
Strictly speaking, Ward explores a shift in politics (ibid., 37–76), in economics (ibid.,
77–116) and in culture (ibid., 117–160), but the cultural shift from secularity to postsecular-
ity is seemingly the most significant for him.
143
See ibid, 155. See also Ola Sigurdson, ‘Beyond Secularism: Towards a Post-Secular
Political Theology,’ Modern Theology 26/2 (2010), 177–196.
144
Ward, Politics, 131. See also ibid., 117–158.
145
Ibid., 154. Ward extensively explores fundamentalism (ibid., 135–138) as well as the
recurrence of religion in the political sphere (ibid., 139–146) and in the cultural sphere
(ibid., 147–154). See also the contributions to The New Visibility of Religion.
218 U. SCHMIEDEL
metamorphosis of religion has taken place within the shift from the secular
to the postsecular.146 Ward assesses the metamorphosis of religion in con-
temporary culture as the source for de-secularization.147 The fact that this
metamorphosis is not necessarily a ‘commodification of religion,’148 ‘sug-
gests that postmodernity is running out of steam; like capitalism of late,
it is experiencing a credit squeeze.’149 In contrast to Pete Ward, Graham
Ward discovers more in contemporary culture than consumerism.150 It is
this more that he revisits and retrieves for his politicized ecclesiology.
The politics of Christian discipleship is about first unmasking the theological

and metaphysical sources of current mythologies and revealing the distor-
tions and perversions of their current secularized forms. Then we need to
reread and rewrite the Christian tradition back into contemporary culture.151
Building on his analysis of the resurgence of religion, Ward returns to

the core concept of the body, revising his ‘metaphysics of the body.’152
Criticizing the point of departure he posited in Cities of God, he now
argues that ‘beginning with the human body, even if it belongs to Jesus of
Nazareth, capitulates … to modern individualism.’153 To counter individ-
ualism, he shifts from the christological body to the ecclesiological body.
Ward characterizes church as a ‘movement.’154 Church is a body that
‘continually overreaches itself’ which is to say that church spills into
culture as culture spills into church.155 Aptly, he refers to a ‘location of
liminality.’156 Such a location is to be thought through in terms of ‘tra-
dition’ rather than in terms of ‘institution.’157 However, the turn from
146
147
Ibid., 147.
148
Ibid., 153.
149
Ibid., 157. For the centrality of capitalism and consumerism, see also Ward, ‘Theology
and Postmodernism.’
150
The ‘more’ allows Ward to ‘move beyond postmodernity entirely.’ (Ward, Politics, 76).
151
Ibid., 165.
152
The metaphysics of the body runs through Ward’s theology. He explores the Eucharist
as the embodiment of Christ in Cities, before he discusses the notions of body and embodi-
ment in phenomenological perspectives in Christ and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005),
61–72, 120–127. Politics, esp. 225–226, returns to the metaphysics of the body.
153
154
Ibid., 187.
155
Ibid., 188.
156
Ibid., 189.
157
Ibid., 188.
institution to tradition does not turn church from the political to the apo-
litical. The opposite is the case. Ward points to the actions of a politi-
cal discipleship. These actions occur outside rather than inside ecclesial
institutions.158 Ward mentions a variety of activities of charity which do
not stop short of ‘pulling pints for the thirsty.’159 The agents of these
actions are rooted in Christ: the agents act in Christ and Christ acts in the
agents.160 Again, Paul’s concept of being ἐν Χριστῷ proves vital for Ward’s
ecclesiology.161 Following his reconfiguration of the agents as both act-
ing and acted upon, Ward stresses that it is not necessarily the individual
action, but the practice to which the individual action belongs, that makes
these activities Christian. The ‘act takes its nature and naming from the
practice of which it is a part.’162 It is a practice which participates analogi-
cally in the actions of God.163 ‘The church, then, as a body of Christians,
is constantly active; it is a network of actors.’164 Focusing on both actions
and actors, Ward explains that the study of church could be understood
as ‘ecclesiality’ rather than ‘ecclesiology,’ because ‘church is only what this
body of Christians do.’165 The concentration on action rather than reflec-
tion sharpens the political edge of Graham Ward’s, in comparison to Pete
Ward’s, ecclesiology.
Since Christians are already doing church, Graham Ward rejects the
concept of utopia. Eschatology is not about a non-place, but about a
place in-between the kingdom come and the kingdom to come.166 ‘Acts
of charity persist’ as ‘operation of God’ such that the ‘messianism of a
“politics which are to come” is already being practised.’167 Ward’s ecclesi-
ology names and renames the acts of charity done by Christians ‘church.’
Through such a (re)naming, these actions can be characterized as God’s
158
See ibid., 189. Unlike Pete Ward, Graham Ward is careful not to pit non-institutional
practice against institutional practice, the liquid against the solid.
159
160
See ibid., 184–185.
161
See Ibid., 249–250.
162
Ibid., 192.
163
See ibid., 193–194, 195–198.
164
Ibid., 201.
165
Ibid., 202.
166
See ibid., 169–171, 283. See also Ward, Cities, 225–226.
167
Ibid., 171. Ward’s rejection of utopia and utopianism cautions against Troeltsch’s con-
cept of the kingdom of God. The concept of the kingdom of God allows for a critical and
creative engagement with ecclesiology precisely because it is simultaneously practiced and
not yet practiced. See Chap. 4.
220 U. SCHMIEDEL
acts with God’s creatures. Hence, in Ward’s understanding of ecclesiol-

ogy there is no clear-cut distinction between what is church and what is
non-church168; the church cannot be spatially or temporally confined; it
is characterized by vulnerability because it is beyond control.169 But does
Ward’s turn from ecclesiology to ecclesiality allow for a community which
engages rather than disengages with the otherness of the other?
Ward denies the charge of individualism. Assessing his ecclesiology as
‘communitarian,’170 he adds a ‘body politic’ to his metaphysics of the body,
arguing against the prioritization of the individual over the social. What
his body politic turns out to be is a dazzling rethinking of politics through
philological and philosophical analyses of Paul’s concept of the body. The
outcome of Ward’s rethinking is the notion of a body which is communal,
a body in which Christians are connected to Christians through submis-
sion to Christ.171 It is the sacramental ‘submission’ which allows Christians
‘the disciplining of their desires by Christ,’ a disciplining that is ‘exercised
so far beyond the precincts of the parish and the priesthood that it is open
wide to making mistakes.’172 Both inside and outside parish and priest-
hood, ‘conformity’ with Christ is what the body politic is about.173
Echoing Troeltsch’s core concept, Ward stresses the necessity of
compromise: ‘compromises’ are ‘the risk the church runs in being the
church.’174 Hence, the fact that the community of church is not clearly
circumscribed—a community with frazzled and fraying margins, so to
speak—does not mean that it is not a community. For Ward, the com-
munity is created through submission to Christ. The concept of the body
allows Ward to reformulate alterity within the community in terms of func-
tion. In the Pauline body of Christ, which connects Christian to Christian,
differences are not elided.175 ‘The differences, functions as such, live out
this polity,’ because the body consists of the mediation of the universal and
the particular: the body is the body through its parts.176 In Ward’s ecclesi-
ology, then, difference is at the center of the concept of church. Difference
168
See Ward, Politics, 21–33, 202.
169
Ibid., 202–203.
170
Ibid., 203.
171
Ibid., 249.
172
Ibid.
173
Ibid., 276.
174
Ibid., 203.
175
Ibid., 150.
176
Ibid.
cautions ecclesiology against strong and striking notions of identity. ‘The

body is never there as such (as if a static object in a freeze-framed still
photo); the body is there only because it moves.’177 Consequently, ‘there
are neither designated insiders nor outsiders.’178
Ward’s concept of the body politic overcomes the separation of insid-
ers and outsiders since—ultimately—the body is a gift to each and every-
body.179 Ward reframes exclusion as self-exclusion: ‘Those who do not act
become those who are excluded because they could not receive the gift of
Christ that was given … Political discipleship thus begins with being able
to receive the gift.’180 Whether a person can or cannot receive the gift,
whether she includes or excludes herself, is a matter of what Ward calls the
‘act of entrustment.’181 The engagement with the polity and the politic of
the body of Christ is ‘one of trusting, of entrusting oneself to the future
promise of what has yet to be revealed.’182
Ward concludes by stressing that recognition and respect for difference
instigate the politics of discipleship. Echoing Troeltsch’s Doppelcharakter
of the kingdom of God, he points to a ‘double axis’: the political action
that promotes equality is grounded in a relation to God which he describes
as ‘theocratic.’183 With ‘theocracy’ he points out how the sacramental sub-
mission to God in Christ allows for equality between those who submit to
Christ.184 The equality which follows from theocracy enables the politics
of discipleship to unmask ‘the powers that operate in the world’ through
inequality.185 According to Ward, Christian and non-Christian faith-based
movements are putting this politics into practice.186 Ultimately, however,
it is God’s power that works against the de-humanizing political powers
in contemporary culture.187 Thus, the kingdom of God, simultaneously
177
Ibid., 255–256.
178
Ibid., 260. Hence, ‘in the incorporation into Christ,’ ‘otherness’ is ‘unsublatable’ (ibid.,
257).
179
Ibid., 260.
180
Ibid.
181
Ibid., 278.
182
Ibid., 279.
183
Ibid., 299.
184
Ibid., 297.
185
Ibid., 291–292.
186
Ibid., 301.
187
See ibid., 294–301.
222 U. SCHMIEDEL
the anchor and the aim of discipleship, inspires Christianity to overcome

‘depoliticization.’188
Ward’s notion of the practice of church in-between the solid and the
liquid resonates with the elasticization of ecclesiology for which I argue.
However, I wonder how, for Ward, today’s disciples might cope with con-
tradictions or controversies about the forms and the features of the king-
dom of God. For the polity of a theocracy189—the theocracy which Ward
explicitly rejected in Cities of God190—requires discernment of what can
and what cannot count as submission to God in christological conformi-
ty.191 Who discerns? Theocracies run the risk of sliding down a slippery
slope into hierocracies, resulting in the inequality between priestly rulers
and non-priestly ruled.192
When Ward writes that the politics of Christian discipleship means that
‘we need to reread and rewrite the Christian tradition back into contem-
porary culture,’ it is ultimately unclear who this ‘we’ is. Are ‘we’ always
agreed on what the Christian tradition is? The acts of charity to which
Ward repeatedly refers might create conflict within that ‘we.’ Is it a char-
itable act to distribute condoms? Is it a charitable act to allow for the
ecclesial marriage or the ecclesial ministry of same-sex couples?193 Is it a
charitable act to assist a patient in palliative care in her suicide? Issues like
these demonstrate the disagreement among disciples who have to decide
what is charitable. Is charity submission to Christ or subversion through
Christ? Or could acts of charity be submissive and subversive at once?
Ward concludes that the core concern of the polity and the politics
of the body of Christ is overcoming ‘depoliticization.’ His conclusion
is correct. But the question is which political practices the disciples are
called to. Ward’s assessment of the current political condition draws on
188
See ibid., 69–70, 262, 264–67, 269–70.
189
By ‘polity,’ Ward means ‘a particular form of political organization, a form of govern-
ment’ (ibid., 40).
190
Ward, Cities, 229.
191
See Sigurdson, ‘Beyond Secularism,’ 191–192.
192
Although Ward, Politics, 294–295, refers to Josephus, he neglects that this slippery
slope is already apparent in Josephus’s concept of theocracy. See the analysis by Peter Schäfer,
‘Theokratie: Die Herrschaft Gottes als Staatsverfassung in der jüdischen Antike,’ in Politik
und Religion: Zur Diagnose der Gegenwart, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf and Heinrich Meier
(München: C.H. Beck, 2013), 199–240.
193
Ward is crystal-clear in his advocacy of same-sex marriage. See Ward, Cities, 182–202.
However, he offers no account of how proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage
within church could or should discuss this issue.
Carl Schmitt’s notion of the political.194 Clearly, Schmitt’s argument that

concepts of the state are indebted to theology is instructive for a poli-
tics of discipleship, especially since Schmitt concludes that both legal and
political theory are in need of theology.195 Yet, what is less clear is how
Schmitt’s concept of the political might be instructive. Schmitt defines the
political according to the question of who is and who is not the enemy.196
The political is rooted in ‘the ultimate distinction’ between Freund and
Feind.197 By ‘enemy’ Schmitt means ‘the other, the stranger; and it is suffi-
cient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially some-
thing different.’198 The distinction between who is and who is not the
enemy is a public as opposed to a private distinction for Schmitt. It refers
to the frontline between communities.199 The concept of frontline is appli-
cable here because for Schmitt the engagement with the enemy eventually
entails ‘the real possibility of physical killing.’200 ‘War follows from enmity.
War is the existential negation of the enemy.’201 Schmitt continues:
What always matters is the possibility of the extreme case taking place, the
real war, and the decision whether this case has or has not arrived. That the
extreme case appears to be an exception does not negate its decisive charac-
ter but confirms it all the more … From this most extreme possibility human
life derives its specifically political tension.202
194
For Ward’s use of Schmitt in Politics, see 44–50, 58–59, 66–70, 176–178, 286.
195
See the famous formula in Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept
of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 36: ‘All significant
concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.’ See also the
introduction to Carl Schmitt in Religion and Political Thought, ed. Graham Ward and
Michael Hoelzl (London: Continuum, 2006), 190–194.
196
Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: Chicago
197
Ibid., 26. Throughout his study, Schmitt’s use of the concepts of ‘Freund’ and ‘Feind’
seems to shift such that ‘Feind’ might from time to time rather be translated as ‘foe.’
Nonetheless, I follow George Schwab who translates with ‘enemy.’
198
Ibid., 27.
199
See ibid., 28–29.
200
Ibid., 32.
201
Ibid., 33.
202
Ibid., 35. In ‘“The Political”: The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of
Political Theology,’ in The Power of Religion, 22, Jürgen Habermas convincingly criticizes
Schmitt for his concept of the political that ‘is superficially adapted to mass democracy but
preserves the authoritarian kernel of a sovereign power with its legitimizing relation to sacred
history.’ He labels this concept of the political a ‘clericofascist conception’ (ibid., 23).
224 U. SCHMIEDEL
The distinction between public and private concepts of enmity allows

Schmitt to remove the biblical commandment to love one’s enemy
(Matthew 5:43–48; Luke 6:27; 6:32–36): for Schmitt, it pertains to the
private as opposed to the public enemy; it is individual as opposed to
social.203
Schmitt argues that the distinction between who is and who is not the
enemy cannot be drawn from a neutral position: this community decides
whether that community is a threat, that community decides whether this
community is a threat. There is no neutral position beyond these commu-
nities.204 The threat is a threat when it pertains to the identity of the com-
munity. For Schmitt, the community is rooted in a way of life: if this way
of life motivates the community to fight for its self-preservation, it is polit-
ical.205 A de-politicized community is tantamount to consumerism: each
and everything would be reduced to mere consumption, such that the
fight against the enemy would be covered up in the practice of ‘perpetual
competition.’206 Ward builds on Schmitt’s critique of the economization
of politics.207 Indeed, Schmitt’s point is plausible. Ultimately, it is insig-
nificant whether a war is fought by military or by non-military means.
Economic competition, too, takes lives, potentially and actually.
However, Schmitt’s conclusion is not to overcome both military and
non-military conflicts. His conclusion is to affirm war: ‘A world in which
the possibility of war is utterly eliminated, a completely pacified globe,
would be a … world without politics.’208 Blurring the boundary between
Freund and Feind would mean that ‘man could not be required to sacri-
fice life.’209 Against such depoliticization, Schmitt claims that the defense
of the political—which is to say, the defense of the distinction between
203
See Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, 28–29. Ward, however, argues that ‘through
love, not law, is the just order established; through love is the alienated citizen once more
called to play his or her part … And yet how strange this sounds—that love is political’
(Ward, Politics, 271). However, Ward does not use this politics of love to call Schmitt’s dis-
tinction between Freund and Feind into question.
204
See Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, 27.
205
See ibid.
206
Ibid., 72. See Habermas, ‘“The Political”,’ 21–22.
207
See Ward, Politics, 69–70.
208
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, 35.
209
Ibid. But as Habermas, ‘“The Political”,’ 21, points out: ‘Against Carl Schmitt, we
might ask: why shouldn’t the political find an impersonal embodiment in the normative
dimension of a democratic constitution?’ See also Jürgen Habermas, ‘Politik und Religion,’
in Politik und Religion, 287–300.
Freund and Feind—is what justifies taking lives. Schmitt affirms differ-
ence. However, in his concept of the political it is the difference in-between
communities not the difference in communities.210 The political or politi-
cized community has to expel its enemies: the other is to be located on
the other side of the frontline in order to combat her.211 Thus, there is a
totalitarianism in Schmitt’s concept of the political, a totalitarianism which
resulted in his support of Adolf Hitler’s regime in Germany.212
To summarize, I have pointed out that Ward’s concept of church finds
fault with the absence of alterity, both internally and externally. It would
be wrong to accuse him of complicity with Schmitt’s totalitarianism. Ward
has convincingly cautioned ecclesiology against ecclesial and non-ecclesial
totalitarianisms.213 Thus, I am not criticizing Ward’s politicized ecclesiol-
ogy for what it has stated, but for what it has not stated. Ward mentions
Schmitt’s conclusion that ‘liberal democracy was itself depoliticizing, for
in allowing all sides to have their say, no enemy … could be identified,’214
but without critically engaging its dubious causes and its devastating con-
sequences.215 Here, he misses the chance to elaborate on how contradic-
tions or controversies in and in-between communities could or should be
negotiated.
Ward’s definition of the ‘political’ as ‘an act that entails power’ leaves
open whether power confirms or criticizes Schmitt’s distinction between
Freund and Feind.216 Thus, his demand for the politicization or re-
politicization of ecclesiology might counter the weak(ening) of the identity
210
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, 53–55.
211
Habermas’s core critique is that Schmitt refuses to cope with both internal and external
pluralism. See his ‘“The Political”,’ 31: ‘Ultimately the leader and the nation, in the person
of its leader, must decide who is friend or foe.’
212
For the reception of Schmitt’s concepts in Europe after 1945, see Jan Werner-Müller,
A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought (Yale: Yale University Press,
2003). The political theology which runs through Troeltsch’s war and postwar writings
rejects totalitarianism. See my ‘The Politics of Europeanism: “God” in Ernst Troeltsch’s War
and Post-War Writings,’ Journal for the History of Modern Theology 22/2 (2015), 231–249.
213
See esp. Graham Ward, ‘Hosting the Stranger and the Pilgrim: A Christian Theological
Reflection,’ in Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion,
ed. Eric Boynton and Martin Kavka (Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2009), 63–81.
214
Ward, Politics, 69.
215
See ibid., 69. Ward mentions that, for Schmitt, the political is rooted in the ultimate
distinction between Freund and Feind. Starting the next sentence with ‘Be that as it may,’ he
misses the chance to challenge this distinction.
216
Ward, Politics, 27.
226 U. SCHMIEDEL
of Christianity in today’s cities of God. Can the broken body of Christ

break other bodies, the bodies of Christian and non-Christian others? It
seems to me that, if overcoming de-politicization requires a Schmittian
contradistinction between Freund and Feind—and nowhere does Ward say
that it does not!—then it requires a singular, strong and striking concept
of identity. How, then, can the disciples be rescued from attacking whoever
and whatever has a different notion of discipleship? How can the disciples
relate to those who do not dare to enter into the ‘act of entrustment’
through which a person is drawn into the body of Christ, its polity and
its politics? And what could or should the invitation to trust others and
to entrust oneself look like? Although questions like these remain to be
answered, Graham Ward contributes to a concept of the practice of church
which avoids the pitfalls of either a solidified church that only counters
culture or a liquefied church that only confirms culture.
In conclusion, I have examined three ecclesiologies—one which solidi-
fies identity, one which liquefies identity, and one which turns neither to
the liquid nor to the solid. Central to all of these ecclesiologies is the con-
centration on the practice of church. John Milbank’s ecclesiology exem-
plifies the ecclesiological turn to practice. However it is defined in detail,
practice is what constitutes church. The communication of the significa-
tion and the significance of Jesus Christ equips practitioners in the pews
and in the pulpits to practice a Christian way of life. Milbank calls it love.
Pete Ward as well as Graham Ward (and, indeed, Ernst Troeltsch) would
agree with him. The decisive difference lies in the way in which these three
ecclesiologists understand the practice of church, whereby the interpreta-
tion of church invariably entails an interpretation of culture and vice versa.
Here, the solid ecclesiology and the liquid ecclesiology mirror each other.
For the solid church, culture is corrosive: thus, church challenges culture
to become like church (underplaying the need to criticize church). For
the liquid church, culture is creative: thus, culture challenges church to
become like culture (underplaying the need to criticize culture).217
Thus, these ecclesiologies spell out what Chap. 2 has interpreted as
the risk of ecclesial solidity and the risk of ecclesial liquidity against both
of which Troeltsch cautioned ecclesiologists: solidity comes with the
anthropoemic neutralization of alterity characteristic of Troeltsch’s type
217
My account comes close to H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic typology in Christ and Culture
(New York: Harper, 1951), which is also inspired by Troeltsch’s tripartite typology, especially
the types of sectarianism and mysticism. Unlike Niebuhr, however, I have concentrated on
the neutralization of alterity inherent in the three ecclesiologies which I analyzed.
of sectarianism; liquidity comes with the anthropophagic neutralization of

alterity characteristic of Troeltsch’s type of mysticism.
Both ecclesiologies entail a conception of power: operating with solid
identity, power is allocated to the church such that church may convert
culture; operating with liquid identity, power is allocated to culture such
that culture may convert church. Here, the power of church clashes with
the power of culture. The clash of powers is arguably characteristic of
debates in concrete churches today, where the claims of culture collide
with the claims of church. The consequence is an arms race which ren-
ders conversation between those who would like to accept contemporary
culture in the church and those who would like to abolish contemporary
culture in the church impossible. What is needed to open up a space for
conversation about compromises is a weak power which allows both sides
to be transformed by the other. What is needed is trust in the other—be
it the other of culture from whom the church might learn, or the other of
church from whom culture might learn.
Trust is vital for Graham Ward’s ecclesiology which neither falls for the
solidifying of church nor for the liquefying of church. Rooted in what Ward
calls the scandal of transcorporeality, the broken body of Christ allows for
critical and creative assessments of both contemporary church and con-
temporary culture: church is enabled to learn from culture as much as
culture is enabled to learn from church. Ward’s hermeneutical weakening
of Christian identity is the center of the interrelation of church and cul-
ture, because it allows the body of Christ to be open(ed) to others—
ecclesiologically open to the finite other and eschatologically open to the
infinite other. Yet, as Ward appears to assert in The Politics of Discipleship,
the open(ed) practice of church might slide down a slippery slope into
the arbitrary acceptance of each and every other which anchors the de-
politicization of church: anything goes. To counter such de-politicization,
Ward employs Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy. This employment,
however, risks reintroducing the rejected distinction between a positive
counter-cultural practice of church (the Schmittian Freund) and a neg-
ative cultural practice of counter-church (the Schmittian Feind). Here,
Ward echoes the communitarianism of confessional communities which
his ecclesiology of the broken body of Christ has convincingly criticized.
Ward seems to be stuck in the alternative which I detailed in Chap. 7:
either trust without doubt or doubt without trust. How, then, can the
identity of Christianity be reframed in a practice which allows for critique
and self-critique in a togetherness of trust?
CHAPTER 9
The Elasticization of Ecclesiology
According to Ernst Troeltsch, the identity of Christianity is not a fixed

freeze-frame which would allow theologians to draw a clear-cut distinction
between who or what might be identified as ‘Christian’ or ‘non-Christian.’
For Troeltsch, identity is ‘in motion.’1 In this chapter, I will return to
Troeltsch. I will argue that he offers a hermeneutics for the identification
of Christianity which turns identity from what I call a propositional posses-
sion into what I call a performative project. The Troeltschian turn revolves
around what I designate the ‘God of the gaps.’ Troeltsch’s God of the
gaps, however, is decidedly different from the God who is commonly con-
ceived of under the label of ‘gap-god.’2 It is a God whose transforma-
tive transcendence might be experienced wherever and whenever one is
opened up to the other. The God of the gaps, then, keeps the identity of
Christianity open to alterity—openness which shapes the center of both
the elasticized practices of church and the reflections on the elasticized
practices of church.
But before I delve into Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification, I will
discuss Judith Butler’s philosophy of performativity. Both the c onstruction
and the destruction of identity through performative practices is the core
1
WD, 153 (my emphasis).
2
The notion of the God of the gaps is usually used to criticize theologies which take gaps
in the explanations of science as proof for the existence of God. Here, the concept of God is
what closes the gap. The notion of ‘God of the gaps’ which I will develop following Troeltsch,
however, interprets God not as the one who closes gaps, but as the one who un-closes gaps.

230 U. SCHMIEDEL
concern of Butler’s political–philosophical project. Building on Butler,

I will examine the significance of ‘practice’ and ‘performance’ for the
construction of identity in ecclesial and non-ecclesial communities. Her
account of the politics of the performative offers the terminology and the
theory through which I will re-read Troeltsch’s account of the identifica-
tion of Christianity.
To argue for the turn from propositional possession to performative
project, I will proceed, perhaps predictably, in three steps: from (step 1)
the ‘doing of identity’ through interpellation to (step 2) the ‘undoing
of identity’ through interpretation to (step 3) the ‘re-doing of identity’
where interpellation and interpretation are coupled through the notion of
a God who opens gaps.3 I will conclude by characterizing Troeltsch’s con-
cept of community as a togetherness of trust. Troeltsch calls for practices
of recognition in which the prejudice of trust prevents the separation of
ecclesial insiders and non-ecclesial outsiders in order to stress the critical
and self-critical search for transformative truth. The concept of church
which is inherent in the elasticization of ecclesiology, then, is a ‘work in
movement’—a work which is simultaneously complete and incomplete
because it must be constituted again and again in performative practices.
Doing Identity
To recall, John L. Austin argues that the illocutionary operates through the
locutionary: there is no pure performative.4 As the utterance ‘I cannot tell
you how grateful I am’ exemplifies, by describing that one cannot describe
one’s gratitude, one is doing one’s gratitude. Austin’s interpretation of
performativity is crucial to understand how identity is constructed—the
theme of the political philosophy of Butler.5 I will argue that Butler’s
3
The concepts of interpellation and interpretation will be explained below. What is impor-
tant here is that practices of interpellation operate with fixed notions of identity, while prac-
tices of interpretation operate with flexible notions of identity. Their coupling, then, enables
a notion of identity which remains open to the other.
4
Austin, How To Do Things With Words, 108–119. See also the analyses in Chaps. 1 and 7.
5
Judith Butler’s account of the construction of identity is rooted in her Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990). However, she incorpo-
rated Austin’s theory of speech acts only in Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative
(London: Routledge, 1997). See Judith Butler, ‘Afterword,’ in Bodily Citations: Religion
and Judith Butler, ed. Ellen T. Armour and Susan M. Ville (New York: University of
Columbia Press, 2006), 286. Thus, I concentrate on Excitable Speech. For a summary of
Butler’s account of performativity see Loxley, Performativity, 112–138. Recently, Butler
THE ELASTICIZATION OF ECCLESIOLOGY 231
hilosophy of the politics of the performative provides a theory and a ter-

p
minology to understand the identity of Christianity in a way which keeps
identity open to what is other.
Butler reads Austin through the lens of Jacques Derrida. In Chap. 1, I
have already indicated that Derrida is concerned with Austin’s analysis of
‘happy’ and ‘unhappy’ performatives, performatives that do and perfor-
matives that do not work.6 Whether a performative is happy or unhappy,
Austin asserts, depends on the circumstances under which it is uttered—
the ‘total speech act’ consisting of the one who speaks, the one who is
spoken to, and the speaking.7 The core condition for a performative to
operate happily rather than unhappily is that it follows ‘conventions.’8
From Austin’s interest in conventions, Derrida concludes that a performa-
tive is repeatable and repeated: its ‘iterability,’ as Derrida calls it, is what
makes the performative happy rather than unhappy.9 For Derrida, every
performative is a citation, recalling and repeating previous performatives.10
Yet, ‘iterability’ combines repetition and rupture because repetition always
already introduces a difference between the repeated and the repetition of
the repeated—a combination of repetition and rupture which will become
important below.11 Butler follows up on Derrida’s concept of iterability
to argue against Austin’s notion of a ‘sovereign subject’ as author of the
performative.12 She asserts that the subject is authoring the performative
as much as the performative is authoring the subject: subjects produce
discourses as much as discourses produce subjects.13 The co-production
elaborated on her political philosophy of performativity through a study which explores

performances of political protest. See Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of
Assembly (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2015).
6
Austin, How to Do Things with Words?, 14.
7
Ibid., 52.
8
Ibid., 106.
9
Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature, Event, Context,’ in Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc, trans.
Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988),
7.
10
Ibid., esp. 13–19. Derrida argues that there is no clear-cut distinction between factual
and fictional discourse because every discourse is a citation. For the significance of Derrida’s
concept of iterability for the interpretation of performativity, see again Loxley, Performativity,
77–87.
11
For a short summary of Derrida’s notion of iterability, see Simon Morgan Wortham,
‘Iterability,’ in The Derrida Dictionary, 78.
12
Butler, Excitable, 15.
13
Ibid., esp. 1–24, 127–164.
232 U. SCHMIEDEL
of subject through discourse and discourse through subject is explained

in her analysis of Louis Althusser’s infamous interpretation of ideological
interpellation.14
Drawing on Pascal’s wager, Althusser makes a Marxist move to explain
the operations of ideology.15 To recall the wager which was encountered in
William James’s interpretation of trust in Chap. 1, although Pascal argues
for the rationality of faith, he admits that his argument might not cre-
ate faith. To those whose faith has not been awakened by his arguments,
Pascal recommends going to church because faith might not be the origin
but the outcome of church-going. Similarly, Althusser argues that ideolo-
gies are not the origin but the outcome of action. Actions are repeated
until they coagulate in ‘rituals’ which make the ideology, the set of mean-
ings which is sustained through rituals, undisputed and undisputable.16
Althusser, then, points to the performative power of practice.
Butler uses the concept of ritual to connect Austin and Althusser in
order to critique Austin’s notion of the sovereign subject. She refers to
a street scene—imagine a dark and dangerous alley—of which Althusser
writes in his interpretation of ideology. In the dark and dangerous alley,
a policeman shouts ‘Hey, you there!’ provoking a person to turn around,
thus reacting and responding to the policeman’s shouting by recognizing
that she is the one shouted at.17
For Althusser, the street scene demonstrates how ideology works:
reacting to the policeman’s address, a person recognizes the meanings
which are encapsulated in the policeman’s address: she recognizes the
set of meanings which defines what counts as criminal and what counts
as non-criminal, what is to be done with criminals and non-criminals,
and where on the spectrum between criminal and non-criminal she is
located. Thus, the street scene demonstrates how ideology produces a
subject and how a subject produces ideology through interpellation: the
address (the policeman’s shouting) and the acceptance of the address
14
Ibid., 32–33. See also the chapter, ‘Conscience Doth Make Subjects of Us All: Althusser’s
Subjection,’ in Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1997), 106–131.
15
Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an
Investigation),’ in Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster
(New York: MR Press, 1971), esp. 168–169.
16
17
Ibid., 174.
(the turn to the policeman’s shouting) of ideology.18 The production

of ideology is anchored in what Althusser analyzes as ‘recognition’ of
a shouting ‘Subject’ by a shouted at ‘subject’ and as ‘recognition’ of
a shouted at ‘subject’ by a shouting ‘Subject.’19 Althusser argues that
such ‘mutual recognition’20 or ‘mirror recognition’21 is the inauguration
of the subject.22 In the face of ideology, the choice is between recog-
nizing oneself as the ‘shouted at’ subject and thus becoming a subject
by recognizing ideology; or not recognizing oneself as the ‘shouted at’
subject and thus not becoming a subject by not recognizing ideology.
For Althusser, one has a choice between being a subject, on the one
hand, and being a non-subject, on the other—which is to say, one has no
choice.23 For Althusser, the mirror of recognition closes ideology to what
is other and outside of ideology. As a consequence, ideology naturalizes
the status quo, rendering it uncriticized and uncriticizable.24
With the help of Althusser, Butler exposes Austin’s sovereign subject as
subjected: the performative produces the subject as much as the subject
produces the performative.25 The interpellation of the ideology which pri-
oritizes ‘white’ over ‘black’—to take one of Butler’s examples26—means
that both whites and blacks ‘internalize’ that whiteness is superior to
blackness. I use ‘internalize’ in inverted commas because Butler’s point
is precisely that there is neither a white identity nor a black identity prior
18
Ibid., 174–175.
19
Ibid., 179. Althusser links the ‘Subject’ with capital ‘S’ to the un-subjected subject of the
creator and the ‘subject’ without capital ‘S’ to the subjected subject of the creature, thus
taking Christianity as the epitome of ideology. See Butler, Excitable, 25–26, 30–31. The
notion of the sovereign subject—be it creator or creature—is what Butler criticizes.
20
Althusser, ‘Ideology,’ 181.
21
Ibid., 182.
22
For a critical discussion of the concept of recognition, see Judith Butler and Athena
Athanasiou, Dispossession: The Performative in the Political (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013),
75–91.
23
Ibid., 181–182. Tied up with the sequence of Althusser’s scene of interpellation, the
(Marxist) discussion revolves around the issue of what the subject is before it is ‘interpellated’
as subject. See the analyses of Althusser in the contributions to Mapping Ideology, ed. Slavoj
Žižek (London: Verso, 2012). It seems to me that Althusser’s example is simply taken too
seriously here. For him, interpellation is always already at play. For a short summary, see also
Won Choi, ‘Inception or Interpellation? The Slovenian School, Butler and Althusser,’
Re-Thinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture and Society 25/1 (2013), 23–37.
24
Althusser, ‘Ideology,’ 181–182.
25
Butler, Excitable, 15–16, 24–28.
26
Ibid., 43–70, 158–159.
234 U. SCHMIEDEL
to ideological interpellation. What follows from interpellation, then, is the

cementation of a status quo through the assignment of identity—in the
example, a white identity superior to a black identity.
Butler’s Austinian-Althusserian account of the inauguration of identity
through ideological interpellation echoes the turn to practice in ecclesiol-
ogy. As exemplified by John Milbank’s ecclesiology, explored above in
Chap. 8, practice is taken as the anti-foundationalist foundation of theol-
ogy in the ecclesiological turn to practice. But against the accusation that
the practice of the church sustains the status quo—an accusation which
runs through Althusser’s interpretation of ideology27—Milbank would
claim that the practice of church counters the practice of non-church, thus
countering rather than cementing the status quo. The epitome of ideol-
ogy, for Althusser, is the comprehensive catholic church of Christendom.28
Although Milbank’s model aligns or realigns church to Christendom, he
posits two practices: the practice of the church with its ideology counters
the practice of the non-church with its ideology. While Althusser argues
that ‘ideology has no outside,’29 Milbank argues that the charitable prac-
tice of the church produces an outside to the uncharitable practice of
the non-church: church counters non-church (and non-church counters
church). Thus, charitable identity confronts non-charitable identity.
However, as I argued in Chap. 8, the solid and the liquid models of
church are—like Althusser’s account—in the clutches of the chimera of a
comprehensive community. Thus, either alterity is excluded through the
bonding of a homogeneous identity (solid church) or alterity is included
through the bridging of a heterogeneous identity (liquid church). In both
cases, the other is rendered irrelevant to the practice of ideology. Hence,
once the struggle of action and counter-action between ecclesial and non-
ecclesial ideology is stopped—either by church converting culture (solid
church) or by culture converting church (liquid church)—the status quo
is cemented. The neutralization of alterity implies the naturalization
of identity. Ultimately, both the solid church and the liquid church fit
Althusser’s model according to which ideological interpellation sustains
the status quo. But, against Althusser’s concentration on the perpetuation
of ideology, Butler is interested in how to subvert ideology from the inside
27
Althusser, ‘Ideology,’ esp. 128–134, 148–170. See also Butler’s critique in Excitable,
24–25, 31–32.
28
Althusser, ‘Ideology,’ 133, 153–157, 177–183.
29
rather than from the outside—an interest which makes her innovative and
instructive for the ecclesiological turn to practice.
Butler criticizes Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of performative practice
which posits the reproduction of ideology through the repetition of prac-
tice.30 Against Bourdieu, she draws on Derrida. Like Bourdieu, Derrida
argues that performatives do work through the repetition of performative
practice. But, unlike Bourdieu, Derrida argues that performatives do not
work through the self-same repetition of performative practice. As men-
tioned above, for Derrida’s account of performativity, the combination of
repetition and rupture is decisive. He stresses ‘the force of the rupture’31
within iterability, asserting that the repetition of a performative is un-
identical to the performative: the ‘iterability of an element divides its own
identity’ which means that the logic of iterability ties identity to alterity.32
Thus, Derrida’s concept of iterability implies what Butler calls ‘the gap’
between the (always already repeated) performative and the repetition of
the (always already repeated) performative: there is rupture in each and
every repetition.33
Anchoring her account of performative practice in this gap, Butler
argues that ideological interpellations sometimes ‘fire’ and sometimes
‘misfire.’34 She retells the street scene told by Althusser, but with a twist.
‘Imagine the …scene in which one is called by a name,’ she writes, but
‘turns around only to protest the name: “That is not me, you must be
mistaken!”.’35 Accordingly, the gap between practice and repetition of
30
Butler concentrates on Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice; and Pierre Bourdieu,
Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). For my analysis it is rather irrelevant whether Butler’s
account of Bourdieu is correct or incorrect. However, see Amy Hollywood, ‘Performativity,
Citationality, Ritualization,’ in Bodily Citations, 252–275, who discusses Butler’s reading of
Bourdieu and Derrida.
31
Derrida, ‘Signature, Event, Context,’ 9. See also Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology,
78–79.
32
Jacques Derrida, ‘Limited Inc a b c …,’ in Limited Inc, 53. See also again, Wortham,
‘Iterability,’ 78.
33
Butler, Excitable, 14–15, 129, 151–152. To be precise, Butler marshals Derrida against
Bourdieu (who, on her account, overemphasizes repetition) as much as she marshals
Bourdieu against Derrida (who, on her account, overemphasizes rupture). The combination
of both accounts of performative practice allows her to rethink performativity as both repeti-
tion and rupture. See ibid., 142–145.
34
Ibid., 19. The terms ‘fire’ and ‘misfire’ are taken from Austin.
35
Ibid., 33.
236 U. SCHMIEDEL
practice is opened, a gap which allows for ‘resistance.’36 Translated into

the terminology which I have developed in Part I and Part II of my study,
Butler’s gap allows for engagements with the otherness of the other, defy-
ing the anthropophagic and the anthropoemic strategies of the neutraliza-
tion of alterity. Butler’s gap allows for a politics of the performative.
For Butler, the ‘politics of the performative’ is an ambiguous phrase:
the performative produces the subjection of the subject (when interpel-
lation fires) as much as it produces the subversion of the subject (when
interpellation misfires). But her point is to turn the politics of the per-
formative from the subjection to the subversion of the status quo. To
illustrate her point, she returns to a slippage in Bourdieu’s account of
authority. Performative practice rests on authority. But while Bourdieu
connects ‘being authorized to speak’ and ‘speaking with authority,’ Butler
disconnects both phrases.37 The politics of the performative is turned from
subjection to subversion of the status quo when the unauthorized subject
speaks authoritatively. Butler points to the example of Rosa Parks, the
African-American Civil Rights activist, who refused to give up her seat in
the section of the bus reserved for whites, thus augmenting the analysis of
the interpellation of racial identity I mentioned above. Butler writes:
When Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus, she had no prior right to
do so … And yet, in laying claim to the right for which she had no prior
authorization she endowed a certain authority on the act, and began
the insurrectionary process of overthrowing those established codes of
legitimacy.38
When the unauthorized speak with authority—like Parks ‘spoke’ when

she sat down in the front of the bus—they choose being non-subjects
over being subjects in the face of ideological interpellation. Such a choice,
Butler argues, takes the outside of ideology into the inside of ideology,
thus imploding the inside/outside structure.39 Such a choice—the black
36
Ibid., 12, 19, 40, 83, 137, 155, 163. In ‘Afterword,’ 285, Butler disclaims the concept
of resistance because it invokes a clear-cut position of counter-ideology against a clear-cut
position of ideology. Instead, she prefers the concept of ‘subversion’ which defies such an
inside/outside structure.
37
38
39
Ibid., 160. Butler’s central critique of Althusser’s account of ideological interpellation is
that it cannot allow for such acts of subversion. For a defense of Althusser against Butler, see
doing what the white is supposed to do or the white doing what the
black is supposed to do—is what ‘rattles’ the status quo.40 It is a ‘perfor-
mativity … that propels the precarious into political life.’41 For Butler,
the crisscrossing of drag is a trope for such rattling resistance.42
Butler completes her account of the politics of the performative by for-
mulating the rattling of the status quo as the political task for today. The
‘encounter of alterity’ is at the core of this task, as it emphasizes that ‘we
do not simply move ourselves, but are ourselves moved by what is outside
us, by others.’43 Elaborating on the Derridean concept of ‘reinscription,’44
she concludes:
The task, it seems, is to compel the terms of modernity to embrace those

they have traditionally excluded … This is not a simple assimilation and
accommodation of what has been excluded into existing terms, but, rather,
the admission of a sense of … futurity into modernity that establishes for
that time an unknown future, one that can only produce anxiety in those
who seek to patrol its conventional boundaries. If there can be a modernity
without foundationalism …, then it will be one in which the key terms of its
operation are not fully secured in advance, one that assumes a futural form
for politics that cannot be fully anticipated.45
Noela Davies, ‘Subjected Subjects? On Judith Butler’s Paradox of Interpellation,’ Hypatia

27/3 (2012), 881–897.
40
41
Butler and Athanasiou, Dispossession, 101.
42
‘Drag’ is a core category in Butler’s Gender Trouble, esp. 163–190. However, ibid.,
xxii–xxii, she cautions her readers that the ‘discussion of drag that Gender Trouble offers to
explain the … performative dimension of gender is not precisely an example of subversion …
The point is rather different. If one thinks that one sees a man dressed as a woman or a
woman dressed as a man, then one takes the first term of each of those perceptions as the
‘reality’ of gender: the gender that is introduced through the simile lacks ‘reality,’ and is
taken to constitute an illusory appearance … The moment in which one’s … perceptions fail,
when one cannot read with surety the body that one sees, is precisely the moment when one
is no longer sure whether the body encountered is that of a man or a woman … When such
categories come into question, the reality of gender is also put into crisis: it becomes unclear
how to distinguish the real from the unreal.’ Evidently, the example of Rosa Parks fulfills a
similar function: when the black behaves as a white (and the white behaves as a black), the
realities of whiteness and blackness are subverted. See also, Butler, ‘Afterword,’ 282.
43
Butler and Athanasiou, Dispossession, 3.
44
45
Ibid., 161.
238 U. SCHMIEDEL
As mentioned above, Althusser takes church—strictly speaking, the church

of Christendom—as the epitome of ideology. Butler, combining Althusser
and Austin through Derrida, thinks along these lines, allocating religion
to the side of that which is to be resisted rather than to the side of that
which is resisting.46 However, re-reading Butler’s account of the politics of
the performative with the Bible in mind, I suggest that such an allocation
could and should be challenged.
A variety of scenes and stories in the Bible might be read as accounts of
ideological interpellation where the protagonist ‘chooses’47 being a non-
subject over being a subject—which is to say, twists and tweaks the opera-
tions of interpellation to subvert the status quo. The prophet Ezekiel was
instructed by God to bake bread ‘using human excrement for fuel’ to
point to the catastrophic future of Israel in the exile (Ezekiel 4:12). Only
after pleading, God allows him to use ‘cow dung’ instead (Ezekiel 4:14).
Whatever else Ezekiel’s action signifies, it signifies that he, instructed by
God, chooses being a non-subject over being a subject, locating himself
on the outside rather than the inside of state ideology, and thus voicing a
subversive critique of its operations.
The narratives about Jesus, inspired by prophets like Ezekiel, tell of
similar choices. Throughout, Jesus challenges the functionaries of reli-
gious and non-religious ideologies. These challenges culminate on the
cross—literally a choice of being a non-subject over being a subject.
How Jesus’s choice resists ideological interpellation is spelled out in the
scenes which revolve around his trial (Mark 14–15, Matthew 26–27,
Luke 22–23, John 18–19). To use the terminology in Butler’s twist
of Bourdieu, Jesus is one who speaks ‘with authority’ but ‘without
authorization.’
Jesus’s resistance against ideological interpellation is what Paul the-
ologizes as the σκάνδαλον of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:23), elaborat-
ing how it turns weakness into strength and strength into weakness (1
Corinthians 1:25). Hence, although it cannot be denied that the religions
46
For Butler’s engagement with religion, see the contributions to Bodily Citations.
However, as Butler affirms in her ‘Afterword,’ 276–277, these contributions precede her
work on Jewish identity, its critique and its self-critique. In any case, Butler has not engaged
with the texts of the Bible.
47
Butler, ‘Afterword,’ 285, points out that ‘choice’ is not necessarily intentional choice
(which would—like ‘resistance’—require a clear-cut stance of counter-ideology countering a
clear-cut stance of ideology). Interestingly, such ambiguity of choice also runs through the
Bible where the prophets ‘choose’ being prophets despite their choice not to be prophets.
which revolve around the Bible have also been used as a power to con-
serve rather than challenge ideology, Butler’s account of the subversion
of the status quo through the subversion of ideological interpellation is
anticipated in a variety of texts of the Bible. What conclusions, then, can
be drawn from the politics of the performative for the construction of the
identity of Christianity?
The three ecclesiological examples of the postliberal turn to practice
analyzed in Chap. 8 confirm the performativity of practice. Building
on the performativity of practice, particularly prominent in Milbank’s
ecclesiology, theologians have developed two models for the church
which mirror each other: the solid church where church counters cul-
ture and the liquid church where culture converts church. But, to put
it in Butler’s terminology, in the case of the solid church and in the
case of the liquid church, the practice of the church is modeled without
the (Derridean) slippage in the ritualized repetition of the performa-
tive which opens the practice of church up for what is outside and
other. Thus, the practice of the church is perverted into the ecclesial
or not so ecclesial interpellation of identity which implies the repeti-
tion of the same.
Graham Ward’s ecclesiology takes the inside to the outside and the out-
side to the inside, so to speak, by advocating a weak concept of the identity
of Christianity. He allows for the slippage in the ritualized repetition which
opens the church: the body of Christ is broken and broken up, repeated and
ruptured. If one works within Butler’s Austinian-Althusserian account of
ideology, Ward’s ecclesiology shows that ideology might be critical and self-
critical. In Excitable Speech, Butler operates with a binary logic: ‘dog’ versus
‘underdog’—ideology aims for the subjection of the other, while the other
aims for the subjection of ideology. In Butler’s binaries, then, Ward would
be the ‘inverted ideologist’ who works to challenge rather than to cement
his ideology. Thus, his interpretation of the weak identity of Christianity
allows for the critique of Butler’s binary logic: Christianity, an ‘ideology’
rooted in the resistance to ideological interpellation repeatedly reported by
the Bible, does not necessarily aim for the subjection of the other. Rather, it
could and should be open to the other’s otherness. Thus, the ‘ideology’ of
Christianity exemplifies a critical and self-critical ideological interpellation
of identity, ideology which is other to itself, a repetition and a rupture.
To summarize, Butler’s politics of the performative explores moves
and modes of subversion against the ideological interpellation of identity.
Thus, she emphasizes a crucial concern neglected in the models of liquid
240 U. SCHMIEDEL
church and solid church where resistance is, if at all, located externally
rather than internally. Ward’s ecclesiology of the broken body elaborates
on Christianity as a practice which offers un-ideological interpellations of
identity—a performative practice which resists ideology. However, as ana-
lyzed in Chap. 8, Ward’s ecclesiology eventually entails the distinction
between Freund and Feind, developed by Carl Schmitt, which closes the
performative politics of Christianity off against the other. In his theory of
theocracy, he turns the body of Christ from an un-ideological interpella-
tion which is ‘broken’ into an ideological interpellation which ‘breaks.’
Through the Freund/Feind distinction, Christianity mimics the ideologi-
cal interpellation which forces subjects to choose either being subject or
being non-subject, inside or outside. Accordingly, what is needed to draw
the conclusions from Butler’s account of the politics of the performative
for ecclesiology is a concept of the identity of Christianity which keeps
Christianity open to the other—a concept of the identity of Christianity
which operates with the prejudice of trust. Like Butler’s politics of the
performative, such a concept of identity would be rooted simultaneously
in repetition and rupture.
Undoing Identity
As discussed above, for Troeltsch, Christianity is ‘practice’48; the identity
of Christianity is ‘in motion,’ a matter of interpretation rather than inter-
pellation.49 Thus, his concept of identity might anticipate and add to the
turn to the performativity of practice. I will argue that in order to keep
Christianity in motion—moved and moving—Troeltsch opens the con-
ceptualization of the identity of Christianity to the other. He anticipates
the philosophical–theological notions of identity which turn identity into
a task: a project rather than a proposition.50 He anchors the anticipated
turn in the performativity rather than the propositionality of identity.
Rejecting the foundationalisms of religious subjectivism and religious
objectivism, Troeltsch depicts ‘dogmatics as a branch of practical theol-
ogy’: dogmatics means critical and self-critical theory of practice, teaching
practitioners and being taught by practitioners.51 Hence, for Troeltsch,
48
SL, viii.
49
WD, 153 (my emphasis).
50
See again, inspired by Ricoeur, Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 159–182. See also
Tanner, Theories of Culture, 151–155.
51
DR, 17.
dogmatics is church dogmatics.52 Despite the postliberal critique of

Troeltsch’s liberalism,53 here the ‘liberal’ concept of practice comes curi-
ously close to the ‘postliberal’ concept of practice. As explored in Chaps.
2 and 4, Troeltsch combines theological and non-theological approaches
to the practice of Christianity past and present, integrating diachronic and
synchronic accounts. Hence, in order to learn about Christianity today,
one has to examine its history and in order to examine its history, one
has to learn about Christianity today. For Troeltsch, then, the identifica-
tion of Christianity is not a condition but a consequence of practice.54 In
accordance with the three ecclesiological examples analyzed in Chap. 8,
Troeltsch affirms the power of practice.
In ‘What Does “Essence of Christianity” Mean?’ (published in 1903
and republished in 1913), Troeltsch dissects the concept of identity.55
To be precise, the concept of ‘essence’ translates the German concept
of Wesen, popularized by Adolf von Harnack’s lectures Das Wesen des
Christentums.56 It might be rendered as ‘identity’ such that Troeltsch asks:
‘What does “identity of Christianity” mean?.’57 He answers not by writing
about identity, but by writing about writing about identity.58
52
However, whereas for the postliberal followers of Karl Barth, dogmatics is theology,
dogmatics is only one branch of theology—namely, a practical branch—for Troeltsch. See the
analysis by Wilhelm Gräb, ‘Dogmatik als Stück der Praktischen Theologie: Das normative
Grundproblem in der praktisch-theologischen Theoriebildung,’ Zeitschrift für Theologie und
Kirche 85 (1988), esp. 485–487.
53
54
See Fechtner, Volkskirche, 26–28, 189.
55
For a short summary of the differences between the 1903 edition and the 1913 edition,
see Stephen W. Sykes, ‘Note,’ in Ernst Troeltsch, Writings on Theology and Religion,
180–181.
56
The controversy about the ‘essence’ of Christianity is easily traced back to Friedrich
Schleiermacher. For a discussion of the (history of the) debate, see Pearson, Beyond Essence,
21–39. Adolf von Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche
Buchhandlung, 1902) is a repeated reference point for Troeltsch.
57
See Stephen W. Sykes, The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Identity of
Christianity from Schleiermacher to Barth (Philadelphia/PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 149–173.
See also Stephen W. Sykes, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and Christianity’s Essence,’ in Ernst Troeltsch
and the Future of Theology, 139–171. Sykes argues that Troeltsch’s thinking on the identity
of Christianity is ‘muddled’ (ibid., 165); however, his argument rests on the assumption that
the interpretation of the identity of Christianity ought to offer a clear-cut distinction between
what is Christian and what is non-Christian—an assumption Troeltsch argues against.
58
WD, 124–128.
242 U. SCHMIEDEL
According to Troeltsch, the function of the concept of identity is to

distinguish between what is Christian and what is non-Christian.59 Yet,
whereas the identification of Christianity with the tradition (rather than
the Bible) in orthodox Catholicism or with the Bible (rather than the
tradition) in orthodox Protestantism appears to be able to draw such a
distinction, the interpretation of Christianity as practice does not.60 For
if one takes the past and the present of the practice of Christianity into
account—in his Glaubenslehre, Troeltsch refers to ‘tradition’ as opposed to
‘traditionalism’61—one is confronted with a plurality of practices.62 Hence,
for Troeltsch, the identity of Christianity is a construction.63
Acknowledging that such a denaturalization of the concept of identity
might provoke the opposition of ‘disturbed dogmaticians,’64 who pre-
fer ‘identity’ to offer a fixed and firm fundament for Christian practice,
Troeltsch argues that the identity of Christianity cannot be ‘complete and
closed’ as long as Christianity is practiced.65 The closure and completion
of identity would mean that Christianity is not practiced: Christianity as
a ‘museum’ or ‘mausoleum.’ Thus, Troeltsch highlights that Christianity
has a moved and moving identity ‘which is not yet fully clear about itself.’66
59
WD, 137–145.
60
WD, 128–137. See also Pearson, Beyond Essence, 58. For Troeltsch’s account of the
significance of the Bible for theology, see Jörg Lauster, ‘Das Ende des Bibeldogmas. Ernst
Troeltschs Aufhebung des protestantischen Schriftprinzips durch die historische Kritik und
die Reaktion der Bibeltheologie,’ Mitteilungen der Ernst-Troeltsch-Gesellschaft 16 (2003),
5–30.
61
WD, 125. See also CF, 32. For Troeltsch’s notion of tradition, see Brian A. Gerrish,
‘Ernst Troeltsch and the Possibility of a Historical Theology,’ in Ernst Troeltsch and the
Future of Theology, 121–127.
62
WD, 125.
63
Troeltsch’s account of history as a construction by the historian is a central concern
throughout Pearson’s Beyond Essence. See esp. her conclusion ibid., 211–212.
64
WD, 125. With ‘disturbed dogmaticians’ Troeltsch mocks theologians who adhere to
the dogmatic as opposed to the historical method. See ibid., 131. See also HD, 11–32. For
a summary, see Pearson, Beyond Essence, 48–53.
65
WD, 132.
66
WD, 141. Troeltsch’s argument that the identity of Christianity might not or not yet be
‘clear about itself’ smacks of a metaphysics of history inspired by Georg W.F. Hegel. In
Chap. 2, I have already explored Troeltsch’s oscillation between teleological and non-teleo-
logical concepts of history. The consequence of Troeltsch’s oscillation is the combination of
existentialism and historicism: an existentialist could understand Christianity without histori-
cism, while a historicist could understand Christianity without existentialism. Troeltsch,
however, wants both.
Identity is a matter of interpretation. But how, then, can the interpretation

of Christianity arrive at the identification of Christianity?
Troeltsch conceives of what I call a hermeneutics of identification. With a
preconception of what is Christian and what is non-Christian the practices
of Christianity past and present are interpreted. The outcome of this inter-
pretation is a concept of the identity of Christianity; this concept of iden-
tity, however, is itself only a preconception for further interpretation(s) of
the practices of Christianity.67 The identity of Christianity, therefore, is a
circular concept, continually changing. Because the identity of Christianity
is in motion, Troeltsch’s hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of ‘identification’
rather than ‘identity.’ Admittedly, he does not use the technical terminol-
ogy of hermeneutics which would have been available to him. Yet, when
he assesses his combination of critique and construction as ‘immanent
criticism’ in which ‘the historical is measured by the historical,’ he echoes
the terminology of past and present hermeneuts.68
Troeltsch stresses that his hermeneutics of identification cannot be
reduced to either engaged subjectivism or disengaged objectivism.69
As it combines the subjective and the objective, the identification of
Christianity is not ‘neutral.’70 Rather, it is—as Troeltsch pointedly puts
it—‘personal.’71 He explains that the personality of the one who identifies
Christianity is involved because the interpretation of identity is neither
simply a matter of the past nor simply a matter of the present. In addition
to the past and the present, the identification of Christianity has to take
the future into account. The ‘projected continuation’ of the trajectory
of Christianity depends on whether one assumes that Christianity will or
will not thrive in the future.72 Thus, the identification of Christianity is
simultaneously a rather objective deduction and a rather subjective deci-
sion about Christianity’s past, present and potential. ‘Here indeed is to be
found the … knot of the whole problem. But this knot—to give the answer at
67
WD, 130–137, 141, 163–177.
68
WD, 142. In WD, 143, Troeltsch adds that his concept of immanent criticism is ‘no
different from the immanent criticism of any book.’ For the hidden hermeneutics in
Troeltsch’s thinking, see again Baum, ‘Science and Commitment’; and Pryzlebski, ‘Troeltschs
Kultursynthese als halbierte Hermeneutik,’ 137–153.
69
WD, 143, succinctly summarizes: ‘Wesensbestimmung ist Wesensgestaltung.’
70
Ibid.
71
WD, 145 and 159.
72
WD, 157–158.
244 U. SCHMIEDEL
once—cannot be undone at all.’73 For Troeltsch, subjectivity and objectiv-

ity seek ‘to be knotted together, not divided. The knotting, however, can
never be achieved by theory.’74 Rooting his hermeneutics of identifica-
tion in practice, Troeltsch argues that the combination of deduction and
decision turns the identification of Christianity into a ‘courageous’ and
‘creative’ ‘act.’75
In his studies on historicism, published in 1922 and 1923, which refine
his hermeneutics of identification,76 Troeltsch refers to the concept of
‘leap (Sprung)’ in order to convey the courageous and creative act.77 The
existential(ist) leap emphasizes that the identification of Christianity can
be served but cannot be secured by historical or meta-historical analyses.
In the ‘existential historicism’ or the ‘historical existentialism’ of Troeltsch,
the future will show in what respects one’s identification of Christianity is
in continuity or in discontinuity with the practice of Christianity.78 Prior to
the eschatological end of history, the identification of Christianity is open
and open-ended. In as much as Troeltsch’s reference to the leap resonates
with the Jamesian jump, it implies that the identification of Christianity
requires trust.79 Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification is rooted in
what I assessed as the prejudice of trust in Chap. 7: a prejudice of trust
which includes rather than excludes critique and self-critique within its
hermeneutics.
73
WD, 160. See also WH: ‘Hier liegt nun allerdings der … Knoten des ganzen Problems.
Aber dieser Knoten ist auch – um die Antwort sofort zu geben – überhaupt nicht
auflösbar.’
74
WD, 160.
75
Ibid.
76
Pearson, Beyond Essence, 182–197, argues that Troeltsch’s studies on historicism use the
concept of ‘synthesis (Synthese)’ to refer to the essence of a cultural complex. For a summary
of the constructive concern of Troeltsch’s historicism, see also Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and
Liberal Theology, 156–160.
77
See HP, esp. 226, 293–294, 382–383, 534–535, 948, 979. See also the succinct sum-
mary by Graf, ‘Einleitung,’ 63–68.
78
For the concept of ‘existential historicism,’ see Hans Joas, The Sacredness of the Person,
122, with reference to Eduard Spranger, ‘Das Historismusproblem an der Universität Berlin
seit 1900,’ in Studium Berolinense: Aufsätze und Beiträge zu Problemen der Wissenschaft und
zur Geschichte der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, ed. Hans Leussink, Eduard
Neuman and Georg Kotowski (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960), 425–243.
79
Here, Troeltsch comes close to Graham Ward’s emphasis on the act of entrustment. The
centrality of trust for Troeltsch’s studies on historicism also becomes apparent in Chapman,
Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 184–185.
Drawing out the implications of the hermeneutics of identification for

theology, Troeltsch argues that dogmatics must not reflect on ‘unchange-
able’ dogmas since such reflection would lead to a dogmatics for dogmati-
cians only.80 Rather, theology must reflect on the practice of Christianities,
past, present and potential, respecting the ‘autonomy’ of the practitio-
ners.81 Troeltsch decidedly distinguishes between ‘autonomy’ and ‘autar-
chy’: the ‘concept of autonomy does not mean that everything has to be
self-produced’ (a meaning which, Troeltsch adds, ‘would quickly put an
end to all mathematics!’); rather, autonomy is about the personal approxi-
mation of the past in the present.82
Respecting the practitioners of the practice of Christianity has conse-
quences for theology. Since ‘the religious development … takes minimum
account of the theologentsia (Theologentum),’ the theologentsia has to
take maximum account of the religious development.83 Troeltsch is not,
however, substituting the ecclesiastical elite of what could be called the
official theologians in the pulpits with the non-ecclesiastical elite of what
could be called the unofficial theologians in the pews.84 Instead, Troeltsch
is critical of the concept ‘elite’ altogether.85 Accordingly, his dogmatics
80
DR, 17.
81
See Bradley E. Starr, ‘Individualism and Reform in Troeltsch’s View of the Church,’
Modern Theology 7/5 (1991), 447–463.
82
CF, 80. According to Troeltsch, autonomy allows for authority as long as the authority
is accepted and appropriated autonomously. See WD, 167–168. For a succinct summary of
the ambiguity of autonomy in Troeltsch, see Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology,
155–156.
83
WD 169 (translation altered). See WH, 439.
84
Hence, Troeltsch would criticize Milbank’s notion of the ecclesiastical–episcopal elite.
Terminologically, I distinguish between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ theologians in order to
avoid the terminology of ‘ordinary theology’ for those in the pews and ‘extraordinary theol-
ogy’ for those in the pulpits. For the commendable project of ‘ordinary theology,’ see Jeff
Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology (Farnham: Ashgate,
2002) and Exploring Ordinary Theology: Everyday Christian Believing in the Church, ed. Jeff
Astley and Leslie J. Francis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).
85
Throughout WD, Troeltsch conveys the impression that the identification of Christianity
might require the elitism of ‘intellectual leaders’ (ibid., 161; see also Sykes, The Identity of
Christianity, 148–173): the identification of Christianity is a ‘task that cannot be demanded
… of anyone,’ because it requires ‘scientific and spiritual resources’ (ibid., 142). These
resources map onto Troeltsch’s combination of historicism and existentialism such that the
scientific pairs with the historical and the spiritual pairs with the existential. However, what
is crucial for both resources is openness to potential and actual corrections (ibid., 131,
142–143, 157, 161, 167, 175). Hence, if one can speak of elitism in Troeltsch’s hermeneu-
tics of identity at all, it is an elitism which defies any scientific or spiritual closure.
246 U. SCHMIEDEL
requires quantitative–empirical and qualitative–empirical studies of con-

crete churches.86 For if one wants to know what Christianity is, one has to
listen and to learn from those practicing Christianity.
For Troeltsch, then, Christianity is a project rather than a possession.
However, those whom Troeltsch calls ‘disturbed dogmaticians’ could
argue that his depiction of practice is developed the wrong way around.
If one does not know what the identity of Christianity is, concrete church
communities cannot be identified; if one cannot identify concrete church
communities, the practice which discerns the identity of Christianity can-
not be identified; and if one cannot identify the practice which discerns
the identity of Christianity, one cannot put Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of
identification into practice. Troeltsch would agree. If the concept of iden-
tity is a matter of interpretation, everybody is invited to participate in the
interpretation. The limitation of the participants would already imply a
concept of identity; thus, the result of the interpretation would have been
reached prior to the interpretation.
From Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification it is not clear whether
he is conscious of these implications. However, he argues that the identifi-
cation of Christianity requires a ‘comparative history of religions,’87 admit-
ting that such a comparative contextualization of the past, the present and
the potential practices of Christianity destabilizes any clear-cut distinction
between who or what counts as Christian and who or what counts as non-
Christian. To be sure, the distinction between the Christian and the non-
Christian is not rejected but relativized by Troeltsch.88 The boundaries are
blurred boundaries. They can be neither patrolled nor policed.
Responding to the ‘disturbed dogmaticians,’ I build on Troeltsch by
arguing that everybody who is concerned with Christianity is invited to
participate in the interpretation of what is Christian and what is non-
Christian. With the concept of concern, I take up Zygmunt Bauman’s
‘communities of concern’ explored in Chap. 5. The concept of concern
extends the scope of the practice at stake: in order to be concerned with
Christianity, one does not necessarily have to be identified or self-identified
as ‘Christian.’ If one’s (self)identification as ‘Christian’ was the criterion
86
Troeltsch’s involvement in concrete churches was a source for his critical and construc-
tive reflection on Christianity inside and outside the church. See Starr, ‘Individualism,’
447–463.
87
WD, 133. See also, DR, 1–21.
88
See CF, 36.
for participation in the interpretation of Christianity, it would indeed rein-

troduce the rejected concept of a clear-cut identity. Instead, ‘concern’
moves the identification of Christianity from the category of propositional-
ity to the category of performativity. Troeltsch, writing before the linguis-
tic turn, could not make recourse to the distinction between discourse as
locutionary ‘describing’ and illocutionary ‘doing.’ Yet, Troeltsch’s herme-
neutics of identification resonates with the move from propositionality to
performativity. For Troeltsch, identity is more about the performance of
interpretation rather than the propositions of interpretation: one’s conti-
nuity with Christianity is anchored in hermeneutical practice rather than
the result of hermeneutical practice.89
To summarize, Troeltsch concentrates on what Butler calls the ‘gap’
between the (always already repeated) performative practice and the
repetition of the (always already repeated) performative practice of
Christianity. His hermeneutics of identification conceives of identity as
a task: identification with Christianity is accomplished through tackling
the task; thus, it is opened to the other who ought not to be neutralized
in advance. Alterity—the otherness of the other—fulfills a fundamental
function because it prevents declared or self-declared elites from claiming
that the identity of Christianity has been fully or finally fixed. Thus, the
gaps which open up willy-nilly between the performative practice of inter-
pretation and the repetition of the performative practice of interpretation
keep the interpretation of the identity of Christianity in motion: the gaps
prevent the reification of the identity of Christianity. For Troeltsch, then,
Christianity is vulnerable.
Sturla Stålsett explores ‘vulnerability’ as a core category for a philo-
sophical–theological anthropology which accepts the notion of the ‘homo
vulnerabilis.’90 He stresses the ambiguity of ‘vulnerability,’ pointing to
its negative side (vulnerability as a cause of victimization) and to its posi-
tive side (vulnerability as a critique of victimization).91 My vulnerability
allows me to empathize with the vulnerability of the victim. To overcome
89
See also Fechtner, Volkskirche, 191–193.
90
Sturla J. Stålsett, ‘The Ethics of Vulnerability, Social Inclusion and Social Capital,’ Forum
for Development Studies 34/1 (2007), 46 (emphasis in the original). For a detailed discussion
of vulnerability in anthropology and theology, see also Sturla J. Stålsett, ‘Towards a Political
Theology of Vulnerability: Anthropological and Theological Propositions,’ Political Theology
16/5 (2015), 464–478.
91
Stålsett, ‘The Ethics of Vulnerability,’ 52–55.
248 U. SCHMIEDEL
victimization, then, Stålsett argues, the ‘intrusion’ of the other is vital.92

Through the intrusion of the other, the ambiguity of vulnerability might
be accepted; identity might be opened to alterity, thus creating a space in
which vulnerability can be recognized and respected—as exemplified by
(the movement which followed) Rosa Parks who made herself vulnerable
to the other.93
Troeltsch’s concentration on the gap, then, could create such a space:
a space in which the challenge of the other is not attacked but accepted.
Troeltsch admits that his hermeneutics of identification ‘opens the door
wide.’94 And he keeps the door he opened wide open.
Re-Doing Identity
Troeltsch operates with a concept of Christian identity which echoes the
turn to practice. With the model of the liquid church, Troeltsch’s con-
cept acknowledges the sociological necessity to incorporate the practice of
concrete church communities into the ongoing project of identification.
With the model of the solid church, Troeltsch’s concept acknowledges the
theological necessity to incorporate the reflection on the practice of con-
crete church communities into the ongoing project of identification. And
with Graham Ward’s account of the body of Christ, located in-between
the liquid and the solid, Troeltsch’s concept shares the critique of the
reification of the identity of Christianity. Thus, my description and my
discussion of Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification confirm the com-
bination of repetition and rupture indispensable to Butler’s political phi-
losophy. However, I will argue that Troeltsch tackles the gap theologically.
I call the notion of God which runs through Troeltsch’s theology a ‘God
of the gaps.’ It is a God who is communicated performatively rather than
propositionally—a God who opens gaps. Thus, one relates to the God of
the gaps by being opened up to what is other. A relationship to such a
God comes with rupture—a rupture, however, which is dependent on the
interpretation and the reinterpretation of the signification and the signifi-
cance of Jesus Christ.
In ‘What Does “Identity of Christianity” Mean?,’ Troeltsch conveys
how christology and theology relate to the identification of Christianity:
92
Ibid., 56.
93
Ibid., 60–61.
94
WD, 166.
identity is closely connected to the God revealed through the practice of

Jesus Christ.
A criterion for the maintenance of continuity in advance does not exist. It is

precisely the … creative characteristic of religion that its continuity asserts
itself only in this continuous … process. Christianity is affirmed when one
has the Father of Jesus Christ present.95
Here, Troeltsch offers a criterion for the identification of Christianity, a

criterion which is simultaneously theological and christological: the pres-
ence of the Father of Jesus Christ. When he elucidates the presence of God
as ‘experience,’ he qualifies his combination of theology and christology.96
As analyzed in Chap. 2, Troeltsch theorizes the experience of the transfor-
mative transcendence of God in a triangle of event, expression and experi-
ence: experience is co-constituted by the event (which pairs with theology
here) and by the expression (which pairs with christology here). In the
practice of Christianity, Jesus is the medium through which the experience
of transformative transcendence is excited and expressed97; therefore, the
experience of the transcendence of God is the experience of the Father of
Jesus Christ.98
Troeltsch’s insistence on experience has consequences for his hermeneu-
tics of identification. The central criterion for continuity with Christianity
is the experience of the presence of God—a transformative presence which
runs through the practice of Christianity, thus connecting the past to the
present to the potential. As I have argued in Chap. 2, for Troeltsch, the
process of revelation in history has neither an absolute point of departure
(because the event of revelation always entails its expression) nor an abso-
lute point of destination (because the event of revelation always exceeds its
expression). Therefore, the identity of Christianity is never ‘naked.’99 To
recall Troeltsch’s conclusion from Chap. 2:
95
WD, 170. See also WH, 440: ‘Die Christlichkeit ist behauptet, wenn man den Vater Jesu
Christi … gegenwärtig hat.’
96
WD, 170.
97
See Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 259–286.
98
With Butler’s political philosophy of performative practice in mind, the potentially patri-
archal and paternalistic metaphor of father could be criticized. In as much as it stresses the
combination of apophatic and cataphatic theologies, Troeltsch’s account of the experience of
transcendence, analyzed and assessed in Chap. 2, would allow for such criticism.
99
WD, 162.
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The concept of reproductive revelation already suggests the image of a spark

that leaps from heart to heart, igniting a different flame in each, according
to what it finds therein. Productive revelation already carries the reproduc-
tive revelation within itself.100
Put plainly, if one has been ‘sparked’ by the experience of the transcen-
dence of God, if one has been touched and transformed by God, one is
in continuity rather than in discontinuity with Christianity. But since the
flame which is ignited by the spark differs from person to person, the spark
cannot be completely conceptualized.
Here, the categories of performativity and propositionality are instruc-
tive. Since there is no pure performative, the spark is the performativity
within the propositionality of revelation. Throughout his oeuvre, Troeltsch
uses a variety of metaphors to depict the spark. Appropriating concepts
such as ‘force (Kraft)’101 or ‘driving force (Triebkraft),’102 he argues
that it is ‘the decisive and driving religious … power’ which identifies
Christianity as Christianity. Accordingly, Troeltsch’s account of the iden-
tity of Christianity is primarily theological and secondarily sociological. As a
consequence, identity is more performative than propositional.
Troeltsch distinguishes the sociological and the theological mode of
identification in a comparative rather than a categorical way, because even-
tually sociological identification is required for theological identification
as much as theological identification is required for sociological identifica-
tion. There is no pure performative, no experience without performative
event and propositional expression. Accordingly, it is the theologian’s task
to trace the performative in the propositional: to trace the force which
drives the practice of Christianity.103
Troeltsch tackles the task of tracing performativity within proposition-
ality christologically. In the practice of Christianity, the experience of trans-
formative transcendence is expressed through the medium of Jesus Christ.
Hence, Troeltsch argues that the center of the practice of Christianity is
the response to the ‘personality and preaching of Jesus.’104 Crucially, he
100
CF, 47. See also Chap. 2.
101
WD, 137.
102
WD, 142.
103
WD, 129.
104
WD, 146. For a comprehensive account of Troeltsch’s christology, see Coakley, Christ
without Absolutes. Coakley calls Troeltsch’s concentration on the personality and the preach-
ing of Jesus ‘realist’: Troeltsch’s point is that ‘Christology be in some sense grounded … in
acknowledges the christological controversies which have characterized

Christianity when he refers to Jesus Christ as ‘the classic.’105 For Troeltsch,
‘the classic’ is a concept from ‘the vocabulary of history’ which allows him
to stress that Jesus Christ exceeds complete conceptualization.106 Admitting
that ‘each age interprets him really quite differently,’107 Troeltsch antici-
pates David Tracy’s concept of the classic as a ‘category of reception.’108
In accordance with Tracy, Troeltsch argues that the significance of Jesus
Christ can only be accessed through the signification of Jesus Christ: Jesus
Christ is accessed through ‘the faith of the community.’109 And because
Jesus Christ is accessed through the faith of the community—indirectly
rather than directly—he remains mysterious.
The corollary of the mystery of Christ is the ‘mysticism of Christ
(Christusmystik).’110 The mysticism of Christ, ‘which will remain the cen-
ter of all actual and authentic Christianity,’ considers Jesus Christ the core
of the Christian faith.111 Thus, the one who has faith in Jesus Christ con-
ceives of herself as ‘emission (Ausstrahlung)’ from the christological center
such that all those who have faith ‘connect again and again in the … inter-
pretation (Deutung) of Jesus as the one who lifts us above ourselves.’112
Troeltsch argues that the mysticism of Christ retrieves the core concern
of the classic christological dogma of the church: an internal rather than
an external ‘connection (Verbundenheit)’ of the congregation with Jesus
Christ ‘in the actualization (Vergegenwärtigung) of which the Christian
cult (Kultus) is actually accomplished.’113
verifiable facts about Jesus of Nazareth’ (ibid., 136). For the term personality as it is used by
Troeltsch, see ibid., 171–172
105
WD, 146–148. See also CF, 24–25.
106
WD, 147. See also Pearson, Beyond Essence, 55–58.
107
WD, 147.
108
See David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of
Pluralism (London: SCM Press, 1981), 99–153. For Tracy’s concept of the classic as a ‘cat-
egory of reception,’ see Jeanrond, Text and Interpretation, 140.
109
WD, 148.
110
For Troeltsch’s ‘Christusmystik,’ see Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 174–180. It is
noteworthy that the mysticism of Christ is akin to the mysticism described in Troeltsch’s
third type. However, unlike the third type, the mysticism of Christ enables the construction
of community.
111
ZM, 848.
112
Ibid.
113
ZM, 851.
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As Sarah Coakley argues, the mysticism of Christ implies neither a

direct move from history to faith (à la Harnack) nor a direct move from
faith to history (à la Herrmann) with Harnack reducing faith to the histor-
ical Jesus and Herrmann reducing the historical Jesus to faith.114 Instead,
on Troeltsch’s account, Jesus is conceived of as the center of ‘cult’ and
‘community.’115 Both cult and community revolve around the interpreta-
tion and the reinterpretation of the classic of Christianity throughout his-
tory.116 Coakley criticizes that Troeltsch’s assertion of the identity between
the historical Jesus and the memorization of the historical Jesus comes
without convincing arguments.117 How can Troeltsch assume ‘continu-
ity’118 between Jesus and the memorization of Jesus, if he points to the
importance of ‘imagination (Phantasie)’119 in this memorization? How
can Troeltsch know that the picture of Jesus which is painted in the prac-
tice of Christianity is an interpretation rather than an invention?120
The distinction between performativity and propositionality allows me
to respond to Coakley’s critique. The continuity between the historical
Jesus and the memorization of the historical Jesus is a performative rather
than a propositional continuity. The memorization of Jesus—includ-
ing imaginations and inventions—is vital to transmit the performative,
the ‘spark,’ which is communicated by the personality and preaching of
Jesus Christ from the past to the present in cult and community. The
communication of Jesus Christ is not about concepts of Christ (proposi-
tionality), but about concerns for Christ (performativity). If one is con-
cerned with Jesus Christ, one will participate in the interpretation of Jesus
Christ which exceeds completion and closure. Troeltsch echoes the per-
formativity–propositionality distinction with a myriad of metaphors, one
of which Coakley takes up:
114
See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 168.
115
SH, 183–207.
116
In SH, Troeltsch applies sociological and psychological theories to point out that Jesus
is at the core of cult and community. Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 136–187, assesses
Troeltsch’s argument as a sociological or a psychological rather than a theological
christocentrism.
117
Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 175.
118
Ibid., 174.
119
Ibid., 168.
120
Ibid., 174.
Thus Jesus himself – Troeltsch does say Jesus here and not Christ – can
be said to be present through the mediation of the community … Or, as
he puts it more pictorially in the Glaubenslehre, Christian believers are like
a searchlight (Lichtkegel) always being beamed out anew from a central
source, Jesus.121
My transposition of Troeltsch’s christology into the terminology of per-

formativity and propositionality highlights that the practice of Christianity
combines continuity and discontinuity: it is a practice which is in need of
both repetition and rupture. In the simultaneity of repetition and rupture,
the structure of Troeltsch’s christology repeats the structure of Troeltsch’s
theology.122 Jesus remains the other; his ‘ultimate unknowability’ means
that the orientation toward Jesus is not a possession, but a project.123
Discipleship, then, is rooted in a drive for difference which leads from
interpretation to reinterpretation, appropriating again and again the expe-
rience of transformative transcendence in Christ. Thus, the practice of
Christianity is a hermeneutical practice: the interpretation of the inter-
pretations of the classic in the past, the present and the potential in criti-
cal and self-critical conversation with the other. When Troeltsch argues
that a ‘sense (Gefühl)’ for what is Christian and for what is non-Christian
runs through the hermeneutical practice of Christianity, he points to
performativity.124
The transcendence of the other has performative rather than proposi-
tional effects: a sense of Christianity which escapes conceptual closures.
It is baffling that Milbank exactly echoes Troeltsch’s account of the iden-
tification of Christianity through a ‘sense’ of what is Christian and what
is non-Christian.125 But while Milbank limits the ‘sense’ propositionally
through a turn to the doctrine of practice, Troeltsch de-limits the ‘sense’
121
Ibid., 175.
122
Ibid., 186, Coakley argues that Troeltsch’s theology and Troeltsch’s christology are
disconnected rather than connected. The ‘logical gap,’ she adds, ‘constitutes the most sig-
nificant flaw in his doctrinal system’ (ibid.). While I agree with Coakley that Troeltsch does
not connect theology and christology explicitly, I argue that the structural similarity between
both attends to the ‘logical gap.’ The gap, then, is paradoxically not filled with the identity
of Christ, but with the alterity of Christ.
123
Ibid., 82, Coakley employs ‘ultimate unknowability’ for Troeltsch’s concept of God. As
I have argued, it is useful for both Troeltsch’s concept of God and Troeltsch’s concept of
Christ.
124
WD, 152. WH, 419.
125
254 U. SCHMIEDEL
performatively through a turn to practice. Accordingly, Troeltsch allows

for a plurality of constructions for the identity of Christianity, since what
counts is that the force or driving force of the transformative transcendence
of God as communicated in Jesus Christ runs through these construc-
tions.126 The performative pulsates and propels Christianity. To construe
the identity of Christianity in propositional rather than performative terms
would mean to curtail or close it.127
As a consequence of the pluralization of identity, Troeltsch accepts and
allows for discussion and dissent about the identification of Christianity in
the practice of Christianity.128 Indeed, it is crucial for Troeltsch’s herme-
neutics of identification that the conflict of interpretations is not to be
stopped but to be sustained. In this conflict, alterity fulfills its function for
the identity of Christianity: by opening Christianity to what is other, alter-
ity keeps Christianity alive. One could put Butler’s announcement into
Troeltsch’s mouth:
Let a thousand conflicts of interpretation bloom, I say! And I say this not
because pluralism alone will ease our minds but because the proliferation of
possible interpretations may well lead to the subversion of an authority that
grounds itself in what may not be questioned.129
For Butler, the conflict of interpretations points to the gap between the
(always already repeated) performative practice and the repetition of the
(always already repeated) performative practice. This gap is decisive for
Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification.
However, Troeltsch tackles the gap theologically. If God is the radical
other, then the mediation of God in Jesus Christ reflects God’s radical
otherness; if the mediation of God in Jesus Christ reflects God’s radi-
cal otherness, then the identity of Christianity is ‘nowhere simply to be
grasped.’130 Thus, any claim to have grasped the identity of Christianity
implies not to have grasped the identity of Christianity because it would
stop the drive for difference at the center of the practice of interpretation.
126
See Claussen, Jesus-Deutung, 268–279.
127
Troeltsch thus agrees with Graham Ward’s ecclesiology of the emerging and emergent
church which is open to the ‘possibilities of performances of Christ beyond any idolisation of
Christianity,’ Ward, ‘Linearity and Complexity in Ecclesiology,’ 128.
128
WD, 152–153.
129
Butler, ‘Afterword,’ 289.
130
Troeltsch, WD, 153.
The drive for difference is central for Christianity because it is propelled by

the performative effects of the transformative transcendence of God. The
claim to have grasped the identity of Christianity would turn Christianity
inside-out, taking the primary theological performativity as secondary and
the secondary sociological propositionality as primary. Engagement with
the other—finite and infinite—opposes such a turn.
Accordingly, Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of the identification of
Christianity could be conceived of as the simultaneity of constructing and
destructing identity—which is to say: the deconstruction of identity. In
Chap. 2, I already acknowledged how close Troeltsch comes to Jacques
Derrida’s notion of deconstruction in response to the transcendence of
the finite and the infinite other. If the other is ultimately unknowable, one
relates to the other by cataphatically constructing concepts of the other
and by apophatically destructing concepts of the other. In the oscillation
between construction and destruction, Troeltsch weakens the identity of
Christianity in a way that allows for the recognition of both repetition and
rupture in the past, the present and the potential practice of Christianity.
Thus, my account of Troeltsch’s concept of practice, inspired by
Butler’s political philosophy, defies the ideological interpellation of iden-
tity at work in the models of solid and liquid church. For Troeltsch, the
interruption of ideological interpellation is not allocated to the outside
but to the inside of Christianity.131 While the liquid model would map
onto a skepticism of identity which assumes the absolute alterity of God
in Christ, the solid model would map onto a fundamentalism of identity
which assumes the absolute identity of God in Christ: against the liq-
uid model, Troeltsch would stress the construction of identity; against
the solid model, Troeltsch would stress the destruction of identity. In
Troeltsch’s terminology, identity is ‘to be conceived of as being in motion,’
thus allowing for ‘opposites’ and ‘oscillation’ within the hermeneutics of
identification.132
As analyzed in Chap. 4, for Troeltsch, the kingdom of God is of the
utmost importance for the identity of Christianity: it keeps identity open
to be transformed by the transcendence of the other, finite and infinite.
Troeltsch refers to it as ‘surplus (Überschuß) which is never given up with
131
It would be interesting to explore the similarities between Troeltsch’s combination of
repetition and rupture with Lieven Boeve’s theology of interruption. See esp. Lieven Boeve,
God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval (London: Continuum, 2007).
132
WD, 153.
256 U. SCHMIEDEL
all the development which takes place.’133 Here, God shows Godself as
a God of the gaps. Because of the ‘surplus’ of the kingdom of God over
all attempts to own God, a theocratic politics of power is ruled out. The
God of the gaps is a God who relinquishes or resists power for the sake of
openness to otherness, the God of the Crib and the God of the Cross—a
vulnerable other.134
In Troeltsch’s terminology, alterity is conveyed with the concept of
novelty—a concept which resonates with Butler’s notion of the ‘performa-
tive surprise.’135 Troeltsch asks practitioners of Christianity to ‘trust the
Christ who comes to us through history,’ because Christ has ‘the power
to create new life even within us.’136 Thus, when ‘we are certain that …
Christ, through history, is speaking a new word to us, we do not need to
be ashamed to admit that it is a new word.’137
To summarize, Troeltsch does not fall into the trap of either subjective
or objective foundationalism. He already anticipates practice as the (non-
foundational) foundation for dogmatics, concentrating on the interpreta-
tions of the identity of Christianity in both diachronic and synchronic
133
WD, 155 (translation altered). See also WH, 422, which refers to ‘ein Überschuß, der
in aller Entwickelung nicht aufgeht’ which could be rendered as ‘a surplus which does not
merge into all the development.’
134
For the coupling of anthropological and theological vulnerability, see again, Stålsett,
‘Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability: Anthropological and Theological
Propositions,’ 464–478.
135
Butler, Gender Trouble, xxvi; as well as Butler and Athanasiou, Dispossession, 127. See
also WD, 168.
136
WD, 168.
137
Ibid. In his ‘Note’ to WD, Sykes compares the 1903 edition with the 1913 edition of
Troeltsch’s study. He discovers a subtle but significant difference: with regard to the mainte-
nance of identity, the 1903 edition points to the significance of the ‘continued close relation-
ship to the congregation’ and the 1913 edition points to the significance of the ‘continued
more or less close relationship to the congregation.’ Does Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identi-
fication prevent the construction of community? I would argue that the difference between
these editions should be traced back to The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, pub-
lished in 1912. Whatever else Troeltsch concluded from his study of the constructions of
community in the history of Christianity, he could not have escaped the conclusion that the
concept of community is like a chameleon—it changes its color according to its context.
Hence, when he restricts the significance of congregation, he recognizes that it remains to be
seen how ‘congregation’ is lived. If the congregation is constituted by the anthropophagic or
the anthropoemic neutralization of alterity, ‘the continued close relationship to the congre-
gation’ would corrode rather than conserve the identity of Christianity. Troeltsch’s herme-
neutics of identity, then, is not restricting community but restricting certain constructions of
community which come at the cost of the other.
perspectives. For Troeltsch, identity emerges from the practice of con-

crete churches which is why it is changing continually. As he pointedly
puts it: ‘An unchangeable Christianity would mean the end of Christianity
itself.’138 Thus, he defies the models of liquid and solid church.
Instead, Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification implies a model of
church which comes close to Graham Ward’s ecclesiology of the broken
body. Like Ward, Troeltsch brings eschatology to bear on ecclesiology in
order to keep it open to the other; like Ward, Troeltsch weakens the iden-
tity of Christianity; however, unlike Ward, the Troeltschian hermeneutics
of identification resists the temptation of theocracy. For Troeltsch, God is
a God of the gaps to whom one relates precisely by opening Christianity
up to the other—the challenge of the other has to be heard inside and
outside Christianity because it prevents the Schmittian slide into a politics
of power. If one is concerned with Christianity, one is not concerned with
the distinction between who or what counts as Christian and who or what
counts as non-Christian. Instead, the identity of Christianity, Troeltsch
concludes, ‘remains in the hand of the same God who turns towards us in
our present-day Christianity.’139
In conclusion, my account of Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification
turns identity from a propositional possession into a performative project.
In Butler’s terminology, the Troeltschian hermeneutics requires the rep-
etition as well as the rupture of the performative practice of the Christian
tradition.140 What distinguishes Troeltsch from Butler (and Butler from
Troeltsch) is that he thinks the politics of the performative theologically.
For Troeltsch, Christianity is not an ideology but an un-ideology, a her-
meneutical practice in which ‘ideology’ weakens ‘ideology’ through the
recognition of the openness and the open-endedness of the ongoing pro-
cess of interpretation.
Troeltsch’s hermeneutics of identification, then, is rooted in what I
characterized as the togetherness of trust in Chap. 7: Troeltsch calls for
the recognition—the registration and the respect—of alterity; Troeltsch
calls for the prejudice of trust, a prejudice which prevents the separation
of trustworthy insiders and non-trustworthy outsiders; and Troeltsch calls
for the search for transformative truth through critical and self-critical
138
DR, 21. See also Ward, ‘Linearity and Complexity in Ecclesiology,’ 99–130.
139
WD, 175.
140
In WD, 176, Troeltsch points to one’s devotion with regard to the past of Christianity
and one’s daring with regard to the potential of Christianity. See also Troeltsch, WH, 448.
258 U. SCHMIEDEL
reflection. He maintains that participation in the ‘service (Gottesdienst)’141

is imperative for the search for truth, but criticizes services which are
obsessed with proclamation rather than communication:
Is the … service … an administration of an objectively completed truth, this

time perceived more from the right, that time perceived more from the left?
Or does one have to admit that … we are all searching so that the … service
is … a common search for truth?142
In the togetherness of trust, then, the identity of Christianity is practiced.

In ‘Die Kirche im Leben der Gegenwart,’ where Troeltsch characterizes
the ‘elasticized’—literally, ‘elastisch gemachte’—church, he calls for prac-
tices which engage rather than disengage the other.143 Here, ‘elasticity’
refers to the structure of the church, a structure which is stretched to
welcome alterity into identity.144
However, the Greek concept ‘ἐλαύνειν’ means ‘to propel’ or ‘to proj-
ect.’ Building on Troeltsch, I am concluding that the elasticization of
church implies that church is propelled by encounters with the other.
Church requires the community in which the other is encountered as
other: it is co-constituted by openness to the other’s otherness. Elasticity,
then, can be rendered on a propositional and on a performative level:
propositionally, it points to the center of the practice of church which can
only be described in elastic terms; performatively, it points to the con-
struction of the practice of the church which can only be done in elastic
terms. If Christianity revolves around the interrelation of the relation to
the finite other with the relation to the infinite other, then the commu-
nity of Christianity—the church—exceeds complete conceptualization: it
occurs performatively rather than propositionally. Church is done rather
than described. Ecclesiology cannot create the practice of church but it
can describe the practice of church. It follows practice. But what could or
should the practice of church look like in practice?
Since the elasticization of both ecclesial practices and reflections on
ecclesial practices concluded that the practice of church is open, it is
imperative not to answer this question with a program for the church.
Any answer which programs the hermeneutical practice of identification
141
See RI, 109–133.
142
RI,126. See also BF, 56.
143
KG, 105.
144
See Molendijk, Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie, 148–154.
would fall for a concept of identity as propositional possession rather than

performative project. It would control, curtail and close ecclesial practice
and reflection on ecclesial practice in advance. Consequently, Troeltsch
hesitates to delimit or define the practices of identification—a hesitance
which is constitutive of the elasticization of ecclesiology.145
I am characterizing the practice of elasticized ecclesiology as ‘a work in
movement.’146 Umberto Eco’s concept of ‘work in movement,’ owed to
his acquaintance with avant-garde artists,147 is rooted in the distinction he
draws between two modes of openness. ‘Every work of art,’ he highlights, ‘is
effectively open to a virtually unlimited range or possible readings.’148 Yet,
there are different modes of openness at work in art. ‘Openness’ might
refer to the reception of the work, on the one hand, or to the production
of the work, on the other. The difference is easily explained if one explores
the example of theater. Imagine a performance in which the audience is
imbibed into the play—audience turned actor—such that the actions and
the reactions of the audience co-constitute the play. Here, ‘openness’ is
not at work on the level of reception but on the level of production. Both
the author(s) and the actor(s) have relinquished the power of performative
productivity to their audience. Literally, the play is out of control.
Eco calls plays like these ‘“works in movement,” because they char-
acteristically consist of unplanned … structural units.’149 Due to these
145
See Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, ‘Religion und Individualität: Bemerkungen zu einem
Grundproblem der Religionstheorie Ernst Troeltschs,’ in Protestantismus und Neuzeit, ed.
Friedrich Wilhelm Graf and Horst Renz (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1984), 230,
where Graf coins the concept of ‘systemkonstitutive Unabgeschlossenheit’ (a ‘non-closed-
ness’ which is constitutive for the system) in order to characterize Troeltsch’s systematic
study of religion.
146
See Eco, The Open Work. When, inspired by Troeltsch, I understand the church as ‘a
work in motion,’ I follow a hint of Christoph Schwöbel. In ‘“Die Idee des Aufbaus heißt
Geschichte durch Geschichte überwinden”: Theologischer Wahrheitsanspruch und das
Problem des sogenannten Historismus,’ in Ernst Troeltschs ‘Historismus,’ 261–284, Schwöbel
comes to the conclusion that Troeltsch’s philosophy of history resembles ‘an open work of
art (ein offenes Kunstwerk)’ (ibid., 284) which is completed not by its production but by its
reception. Here, I elaborate on Schwöbel’s conclusion with reference to Eco’s analysis of
open works. Pushing Schwöbel’s conclusion further, I argue that church is not only com-
pleted but constituted again and again.
147
See the chapter, ‘The Death of the Gruppo 63,’ in Eco, The Open Work, 236–249. See
also the ‘Introduction’ by David Robey, in ibid., vii–xxxii.
148
Eco, ‘The Poetics of the Open Work,’ in The Open Work, 21.
149
Ibid., 12.
260 U. SCHMIEDEL
unplanned structural units, these works are intrinsically mobile rather

than extrinsically mobile.150 Eco explains:
Every performance explains the composition but does not exhaust it … In

short, we can say that every performance offers us a complete … version of
the work, but at the same time makes it incomplete for us, because it cannot
simultaneously give all the other artistic solutions which the work would
admit.151
Accordingly, the work in movement is simultaneously complete and

incomplete: ‘the author offers … a work to be completed.’152
If elasticized ecclesiology envisions church as ‘work in movement’—a
work which is moving and moved by the transformative transcendence of
finite and infinite alterity—then it cannot offer a plan for church to be put
into practice. Both the practices of the open church and the reflections on
the practices of the open church cannot be completely conceptualized.
But church can be constituted through the transformation by finite and
infinite others, performatively rather than propositionally, ever again and
ever anew.
150
Ibid.
151
Ibid., 15.
152
Conclusion: Crisis in Church(es)
How can communities cope with the current crisis of churches? Across
Europe, ecclesiologists increasingly interpret diversification as the reason
and de-diversification as the response to the current crisis of churches.1
For the Church of England, these ecclesiologists recommend the com-
partmentalization of church into coherent and consistent communities
under the common conception of ‘Anglican identity.’2 Thus, the Church
of England could eventually ensure that Christians who prefer to practice
church this way would find a congregation that fits them, while Christians
who prefer to practice church that way would find a congregation that fits
them.3 Difference could be disengaged.
See again the Introduction.

1
For these commendations, see again the contributions to How Healthy is the C of E?
2
The Church Times Health Check which I summarized in the Introduction to my study.
The fact that the concept of ‘Anglican identity’ remains under- if not undefined in How
Healthy is the C of E? is easily explained. If Anglicanism is interpreted as a ‘franchise’
which incorporates distinct and diverse communities, then the identity of Anglicanism
escapes definition. Following my discussion of identity in Chaps. 7, 8, and 9, I advocate
the notion of an opened or open identity. In the rhetoric of the ‘Church Health Check,’
however, ‘Anglican identity’ is used as if it was a firm rather than a fragile concept: a
propositionally open concept used for closure rather than a performatively open con-
cept used for unclosure.
3
Woodhead, ‘A remedy,’ 117.

Interreligious Dialogue, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40832-3
262 CONCLUSION: CRISIS IN CHURCH(ES)
Throughout my exploration of Ernst Troeltsch’s interdisciplinary

thinking on ecclesial and non-ecclesial communities, I have argued for
the opposite. The communities which constitute the church need to be
elasticized in order to engage the finite and the infinite other. The alter-
ity of what I have called the finite other (which is to say, the creature)
and the alterity of what I have called the infinite other (which is to say,
the creator) could and should be at the core of the practices of church.
My argument proceeded through three parts which concentrated on the
controversial but connected concepts of ‘religiosity,’ ‘community’ and
‘identity.’ In Part I, I considered the significance of community for experi-
ences of transcendence. Drawing on William James, I introduced trust as
a central category for sociological and theological accounts of religiosity.
Confronting James with John L. Austin’s philosophy of language, I pro-
posed that both experiences and expressions of transcendence are relevant
to resist non-theological reductions of religiosity to the natural as well as
theological reductions of religiosity to the supernatural. Elaborating on
Rowan Williams’s Gifford Lectures, I advocated for difference and defer-
ral in our language about both the finite and the infinite other. Discussing
Troeltsch’s reception of James, I delineated two ecclesiological risks: the
‘liberal risk’ which liquefies churches and the ‘postliberal risk’ which solid-
ifies churches, thus stopping and staunching the dynamic drive for dif-
ference at the core of religions past and present. In critical conversation
with the sociology of experience developed by Hans Joas, the theology of
experience developed by Jörg Lauster, and Ingolf U. Dalferth’s accounts
of trust and transcendence, I argued that if religiosity is interpreted as a
trust in the transcendent which is embodied in personalities and embed-
ded in communities, these ecclesiological risks can be avoided. Here, the
transformative transcendence of trust in the finite other is connected to
how one encounters the infinite other and the transformative transcen-
dence of trust in the infinite other is connected to how one encounters
the finite other.
Part II offered an in-depth and in-detail account of the central concepts
of community constructed throughout the history of Christianity, tak-
ing Troeltsch’s tripartite typology of ‘ecclesiasticism,’ ‘sectarianism’ and
‘mysticism’ as a point of departure. Confronting the current controversies
in sociology and in sociology of religion with the Troeltschian typology,
I identified two systematic structures in the construction of commu-
nity which instrumentalize the other: either the other is excluded in the
bonding of a homogeneous communal identity (Zygmunt Bauman’s
CONCLUSION: CRISIS IN CHURCH(ES) 263
a nthropoemic attack on alterity) or the other is included in the bridging of

a heterogeneous communal identity (Zygmunt Bauman’s anthropopha-
gic attack on alterity). In sociology of religion, these instrumentalizations
of alterity connect the diagnosis of secularization and the diagnosis of
de-secularization: in both diagnoses, the other is theorized as a threat.
Discussing the accounts of alterity in the sociologies of Peter L. Berger,
Hans Joas and Charles Taylor, I argued that the other might be a promise
for Christianity in modernized and modernizing contexts. Yet if alterity
might be a promise, then identity might become a problem.
Part III explored and elaborated on the conceptualization of the iden-
tity of Christianity. Taking the openness to otherness which characterizes
the togetherness of trust as a central criterion, I examined the concepts
of practice in the ecclesiologies of John Milbank, Pete Ward and Graham
Ward. Although these three ecclesiologies take practice as their point of
departure, they ultimately undermine the recognition of alterity in their
accounts of the identity of Christianity. Rereading Troeltsch’s seminal
study ‘What Does “Essence of Christianity” Mean?’ through the lens of
Judith Butler’s political philosophy of performativity, I advocated for a
turn from identity as a ‘propositional possession’ to identity as a ‘per-
formative project’: church as a doing rather than a describing—which is
to say, church as a practice which can be neither closed nor controlled.
The elasticization of ecclesiology culminated in the conceptualization of
church through Umberto Eco’s category of the ‘work in movement,’ a
work which has to be practiced ever again and ever anew.
In conclusion, I will now return to Troeltsch’s account of church in
order to chart the contours of the open(ed) community. For doing so, ‘Die
Kirche im Leben der Gegenwart’—the seminal study which inspired my
elasticization of ecclesiology—will provide a promising point of departure.
Troeltsch opens the study by criticizing both scholars who diagnose the
ruin of religion and scholars who diagnose the return of religion: ‘might
happen, might not happen.’4 Rejecting scenarios which are too pessimistic
and scenarios which are too optimistic, he calmly and confidently reflects
on churches in modernized and modernizing contexts.5 Troeltsch insists
that the sociology and the theology of church ‘condition and crisscross
each other.’6 The church is a sociological-theological ‘compromise’ the
4
KG, 97.
5
KG, 98.
6
SK, 687. See also Molendijk, Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie, 178–179.
contents of which need to be negotiated and renegotiated continuously.7

In these negotiations, Troeltsch argues, the practitioners who prefer this
model of church and the practitioners who prefer that model of church have
to make concessions to each other. Uniformity becomes impossible.8 Unity,
however, becomes possible through what Troeltsch calls ‘Gemeingeist,’ a
concept which could be rendered as the common concern—the spirit, so
to speak—of the community.9 With the concept of Gemeingeist, Troeltsch
points to the effects which the engagement with Jesus Christ has on those
who have encountered him: God’s grace emanates from Jesus Christ.10
Irrespective of the sociological and theological differences among those
who practice church, then, church is centered in practices which are rooted
in God’s grace—practices beyond closure and control.11
The critique of coercion is at the center of Troeltsch’s recommenda-
tions for contemporary churches. With respect to what I have called the
‘official theologians’ in the pulpits and to what I have called the ‘unofficial
theologians’ in the pews, Troeltsch demands the democratization of their
practices.12 If these practices are released from the control of ecclesial-elit-
ist functionaries, the communities could intensify the scope for their inter-
nal activities (λειτoυργία) and increase the space for their external activities
(διαkoνία).13 The democratization of practice provokes pluralization as
well as provisionalization. For Troeltsch, the practitioners of church—
‘officials’ and ‘unofficials’ alike—ought to be in continual conversation.14
7
KG, 104.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid. For the concept of ‘Gemeingeist,’ see Arie L. Molendijk, ‘Ernst Troeltsch
über Friedrich Schleiermachers Auffassung von der Kirche,’ in Die aufgeklärte
Religion und ihre Probleme, esp. 374–381. Molendijk argues that the concept of
‘Gemeingeist’ combines both the continuity of church supported by communal tra-
dition and the discontinuity of church supported by personal innovation. The fact
that Troeltsch argues that the ‘Gemeingeist’ of Christianity exceeds complete con-
ceptualization suggests interpreting it as a performative rather than a propositional
category. See also BF, 73.
10
KG, 106.
11
KG, 108. Through the emphasis on God’s grace in the practice of the Gospel,
Troeltsch returns to the interpretation of church characteristic of the Reformation. See
again The Augsburg Confession (1530), article 7. See also GG and AK. However, the
conclusions Troeltsch draws from the emphasis on God’s grace counter the ecclesiasti-
cism inherent in the ecclesiologies of Protestantism prior to the Enlightenment
12
KG, 101.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
He acknowledges the conflicts which might come up in conversation, but

argues that the conversation must be ‘reckless’ or ‘ruthless’ because nei-
ther the sociology nor the theology of the church can be exempt from the
critical and self-critical search for the manifestation of truth.15 Ecclesiology
needs to be open and open-ended. Troeltsch advocates engaging rather
than disengaging the other, accepting that practicing church creates
‘differences and disparities.’16 The core of Troeltsch’s critique of coer-
cion, then, could be characterized as a concentration on communication.
Importantly, he insists that the concentration on communication sets nei-
ther a liberal nor a non-liberal agenda.17 Instead, his agenda is to allow
liberal practitioners to challenge non-liberals and non-liberal practitioners
to challenge liberals ‘without scorn and without sneer’ in order to render
the practices of church ‘provisional.’18 Through the pluralization and the
provisionalization of practice, then, churches would be ‘elasticized’ and
would become ‘elastic.’19 If it is accepted that uniformity is not constitu-
tive of community, Troeltsch concludes, ‘the separation which is always
dumb and dangerous becomes redundant.’20 Instead, the community is
turned into an ‘unfinished task.’21
Translated into the terminology which I have developed, defined and
discussed throughout my study, Troeltsch’s conclusion suggests that the
transformative transcendence of the other finds its conduit in the prac-
tices of church: the church is where Jesus Christ is communicated so as
to interrelate the relations to the finite other with the relations to the
infinite other. Christianity is done rather than described in these inter-
related relations. Troeltsch almost articulates the distinction between
performativity and propositionality when he concludes that one believes
in the church because one believes in a ‘force’—the force ‘of the spirit
emanating from Christ.’22 The opened and open church counters the
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
17
KG, 102.
18
KG, 101–102.
19
KG, 105.
20
SK, 696.
21
Ibid. Ecumenically, Troeltsch suggests a confirmation of confessions and a criticism
of competition. The ‘continual immersion in one’s own confession’ prompts and pro-
vokes the ‘renunciation of … absolute confessional churches,’ because what is at stake
is the ‘trust in the force of the … life of Christ which builds itself each and every time
in a way appropriate to its church’ (ibid.).
22
SK, 700.
absence of alterity which has permeated so many constructions of com-

munity in the history of Christianity.
For Troeltsch, it is ‘a new concept of church.’23 What is ‘new’ about it is
that the communities of church are understood not through their coher-
ence and consistency, but through their incoherence and inconsistency—
which is to say, through the engagement with the finite and the infinite
other which runs through their plural and provisional practices in the wake
of Jesus Christ.24 Neither sociologically nor theologically can Troeltsch be
pinned down further. Within the church, he argues
any proclamation is adequate, which knows itself to draw from the ‘Word,’
and the conflict between ways of proclamation which follows from this is …
to be reconciled without … coercion through the firm religious trust that in
the conflict … God’s spirit will assert itself.25
Troeltsch focuses on intra-religious rather than inter-religious com-

munication.26 But it would be tempting to apply the elasticization of
ecclesiology also to dialogues between religions. If transformative tran-
scendence can be experienced when one encounters the other in trust,
these encounters pertain to both intra-religious and inter-religious others.
Strangely, Troeltsch’s thinking has been portrayed both as ‘inclusivist’27
and as ‘pluralist.’28 Yet if Troeltsch’s concept of church is pushed to its
23
Ibid. According to Troeltsch, the ‘new’ concept of church can be traced back to
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith, where he countered the individualism of
his speeches On Religion. See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 532–732. See also the
account of Schleiermacher’s ecclesiology in Haight, Christian Community in History, vol.
2, 311–335. For Troeltsch’s reception of Schleiermacher, see again, Molendijk, ‘Ernst
Troeltsch über Friedrich Schleiermachers Auffassung von der Kirche,’ 365–381.
24
For Troeltsch, such a concept of community is instructive for both ecclesial and
non-ecclesial communities. See FV, 160–187.
25
KG, 106.
26
Fechtner, Volkskirche, 150–151.
27
For the resemblance of Troeltsch’s theology to inclusivism, see the chapter, ‘The
Question of Hegemony: Ernst Troeltsch and the Reconstituted European Universalism,’
in Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, 309–324. See also Chap. 4.
28
For the resemblance of Troeltsch’s theology to pluralism, see Peter De Mey, ‘Ernst
Troeltsch: A Moderate Pluralist? An Evaluation of His Reflections on the Place of
Christianity among the other Religions,’ in The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest
for Unity in Contemporary Christology, ed. Terrence Merrigan and Jaques Haers
(Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 349–380; and Perry Schmidt-Leukel, ‘Die
Herausforderung der Religionsgeschichte für die Theologie,’ in Christlicher
sociological-theological conclusion, he is neither: inclusivisms, pluralisms

(and indeed exclusivisms) operate with fixed concepts of the identity of
Christianity.29 Such concepts, however, are not applicable to Troeltsch’s
hermeneutics of identification in which the identity of Christianity is inter-
preted as flexible and fluctuating. For Troeltsch, there is no clear-cut dis-
tinction between intra-religious and inter-religious dialogue. He argues
that the ‘contradiction between the Christian and the non- Christian
remains, but is no longer absolute; it is now conceived in terms of a rela-
tive contrast.’30 Hence, the elasticization of ecclesiology understands
exposures to the intra-religious and to the inter-religious other as oppor-
tunities for the experience of transformative transcendence. The prejudice
of trust pertains to the intra- as well as the inter-religious other.31
How, then, can communities cope with the current crisis of churches
across Europe? If church is where relations to the finite other intersect
with relations to the infinite other in Jesus Christ, then the absence of
alterity is at the core of the current crisis. Consequently, the elasticization
of ecclesiology recommends diversification rather than de-diversification.
Through the compartmentalization of church, currently commended for
the Church of England, the opportunity to experience the transforma-
tive transcendence of the other so vital for the practices of church past
and present would be taken away from the practitioners. Thus, the socio-
logical closure against the finite other would prevent experiences of the
transcendence of the infinite other as much as the theological closure
against the infinite other would prevent experiences of the transcendence
of the finite other. Hence, the separation from the other—amicable or
Wahrheitsanspruch - historische Relativität: Auseinandersetzungen mit Ernst Troeltschs

Absolutheitsschrift im Kontext heutiger Religionstheologie, ed. Reinhart Bernhardt and
Georg Pfleiderer (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2004), 111–130.
29
For the concepts of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, see Perry Schmidt-
Leukel, ‘Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: The Tripolar Typology Reaffirmed,’ in
The Myth of Religious Superiority: Multifaith Explorations of Religious Pluralism, ed.
Paul Knitter (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2005), 13–27.
30
CF, 36. See also Michael Pye, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and the End of the Problem about
“Other” Religions,’ in Ernst Troeltsch and the Future of Theology, 171–195.
31
Here, Troeltsch comes close to David Tracy’s concept of inter-faith dialogue as devel-
oped in Dialogue with the Other, 95: ‘It cannot be overemphasized that, if genuine dialogue
is to occur, we must be willing to put everything at risk.’ See also David Tracy, ‘The Other
of Dialectic and Dialogue,’ in Dynamics of Difference, 105–113, where he succinctly sum-
marizes the notion of dialogue in the following way: ‘In fact, dialogue with the other …
demands the willingness to risk one’s present self-understanding’ (ibid., 113).
not-so-amicable—is dubious and dangerous. Trust evaporates where the

outsider remains locked outside and the insider remains locked inside.
In Anglicanism, the corollaries of the evaporation of trust are apparent
in the controversies stirred up by constructions of identity over against
alterity and alterity over against identity. The other is instrumentalized in
order to ‘sharpen’ the profile of the Church of England so as to compete
on a market of religious and non-religious providers. Here, the church is
concerned with its survival rather than its service. However, if one con-
siders the diversity which has marked the Church of England through-
out history,32 Anglicanism is destined to exemplify the elasticization of
ecclesiology.33 The vignettes which opened the three parts of my study
both exemplify and emphasize how a community can be constituted by
the other.34 Crucially, ‘vignettes are not complete in themselves.’35 As
‘open-ended narratives,’ they ‘lead to further discussion’ that requires the
scholar ‘to keep the lived reality of lived religions in view.’36 Since the elas-
ticization of ecclesiology is not a programmatic plan which could be put
into practice, the lived reality of the congregation with which I celebrated
allows for a discussion of how layers and levels of alterity interact in the
open(ed) community.
Since the community is located in what the Church of England calls
the Diocese of Europe, it is itself on the outside rather than the inside of
its context. Throughout its history, the community has been open to the
32
For an introduction to Anglicanism which points to its diversity, see Mark
D. Chapman, Anglican Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2012). Chapman’s introduc-
tion explores how the search for ‘an elusive Anglican identity became a common-place
activity among the different parties that emerged from the eighteenth and nineteenth
century’ (ibid., 2–3). He explains: ‘While most churches that emerged from the
Reformation could rely on a long history of carefully argued dogmatic theology …, the
Church of England lacked such a clear-cut theological tradition’ (ibid., 4).
33
A ‘comprehensiveness’ which allows for differences and diversity has been a theo-
logical trait of Anglicanism. For a short summary on the checkered career of the con-
cept of comprehensiveness, see Andrew Pierce, ‘Comprehensive Vision: The Ecumenical
Potential of a Lost Ideal,’ in Ecumenical Ecclesiology, 76–87. For the difficulties and
differences faced by the Anglican Communion today, see Mark D. Chapman, ‘Inclusion
and Exclusion in the Anglican Communion: The Case of the Anglican Covenant,’ in
Ecclesiology and Exclusion, 295–306.
34
The inclusion of these vignettes is inspired by the contributions to Religions in
Focus. For a short summary of the significance of vignettes for the study of religion, see
again, Harvey, ‘Introduction,’ in ibid., 1–10.
35
Ibid., 3–4.
36
Ibid.
other. Even the church in which the community meets is not owned by
the community. Accordingly, the community displays the opposite of a
sharpened and sharp Anglican profile. Instead, it is a community which is
characterized by alterity. As Richard Kearney argues in his trilogy about
alterity,37 the other ought not to be conceived of either as ‘too foreign’ or
as ‘too familiar.’38 In order to engage the other, her foreignness needs to
be understood as the familiar and her familiarity needs to be understood as
the foreign. Because it is capable of considering itself as outsider, the com-
munity with which I celebrated can couple the familiarization of alterity
with the de-familiarization of identity. However, while Kearney would like
to distinguish between others to whom one should and others to whom
one should not respond hospitably,39 the community puts what I called the
‘prejudice of trust’ into practice. Hospitality is offered to each and every
other who asks for it. Of course, the community’s openness to the other
comes with difficulties. I alluded to the conflicts which alert the members
of the community to risk. Yet, they interpret their alertness not in order
to disengage but in order to engage the other even more. Although disap-
pointment cannot be ruled out, the other is both trusted and entrusted by
the community. As the minister argued, ‘if worship works well, people take
more risks and responsibility in getting to know each other.’
The other who has been socially and economically excluded is at the
center of the community’s service—however, to paraphrase Mayra Rivera’s
The Touch of Transcendence, not because the community assesses transcen-
dence as sociopolitical exclusion, but because the community acknowl-
edges that sociopolitical exclusion is the essential effect of ignoring the
transcendence of the other.40 Thus, the homeless become hosts and the
hosts become homeless. Even issues which have stirred up controversy
throughout the Church of England are not interpreted as divisive. Instead,
these issues are opportunities to think through the (tacit) theologies of
the community: whether they allow or disallow for engagements with the
other by ‘accepting people as they are.’ For the members of the com-
munity, it becomes thinkable to support others with whom they disagree
because the disagreement is anchored in acceptance. Hence, although the
37
The trilogy includes On Stories; The God Who May Be and Strangers, Gods and
Monsters. See also, again, the Introduction to my study.
38
Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters, 11.
39
Ibid., esp. 83–108.
40
See again, Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence, 82.
other destabilizes the identity of the community, she is engaged rather

than disengaged.
Finally, the engagement with alterity requires the community to be
moving and moved by the other—to become and to be a ‘work in move-
ment,’ characterized by what Umberto Eco calls ‘unplanned structural
units.’41 These ‘units’ run through the practices of the community,
particularly through the services which the community celebrates. The
sermon I heard was communal; it allowed the preacher to listen and
the listeners to preach. Thus, it communicated performatively rather
than propositionally that the infinite other is met through the finite as
much as the finite is met through the infinite other. It was doing rather
than describing transformative transcendence with words. Through the
sermon, Jesus Christ was transformed ‘in’ the other and the other was
transformed ‘in’ Jesus Christ: the other—who, in my case, was a black
teenager who could not really read—was ἐν Xριστῷ. The notion of a
God of the gaps, who un-closes rather than closes communities, thus
became experiential: through the togetherness of trust, ecclesiology was
fused and fueled by eschatology. Thus, the community was practicing
(yet not preserving or profiling) the identity of Christianity. Christianity
was done rather than described through the inter-relation of the rela-
tions to the finite other with the relations to the infinite other. Both are,
as the minister argued, ‘intimately intertwined.’
The vignettes, then, narrated the practices of a community which elas-
ticizes ecclesiology. It could be asked, of course, whether the elasticiza-
tion of ecclesiology for which I have argued and advocated throughout
my study is too idealistic. Put plainly, it is and it is not. Whatever else
the history of ecclesiology emphasizes, it exposes that church can be nei-
ther done nor described without ideals about what ‘church’ could and
should be. Indeed, the current crisis of churches across Europe prompts
ecclesiologists to re-think their idea(l)s of church. Hence, the question is
not whether there are ideals but which ideals there are. The elasticization
of ecclesiology assumes that the other might be a promise rather than a
problem. Its idea of the other, then, could be called idealistic, for even
when suspicion is included rather than excluded from trust, a together-
ness of trust cannot be controlled. After all, the prejudice of trust might
be disappointed. However, abandoning the idea(l) of the other comes at a
cost—namely, the neutralization of alterity through inclusion or exclusion,
Eco, ‘The Poetics of the Open Work,’ 12.

41
a neutralization which pertains to both the finite and the infinite other.
This cost might be too high. Hence, the idea(l) of the promise of plurality
might be the opposite of idealism. It might be radical and realistic. And in
any case, it is much more responsible than the continuation of a status quo
which will eventually entail the evaporation of church.
To summarize, then, the churches in crisis and the crisis in churches
which I have considered throughout my study could be characterized as
opportunities for a performative re-doing and a propositional re-describing
of church as a work in movement. Instead of fixing the formulas and func-
tions of the ecclesial status quo, the practitioners of church could be sur-
prised by the transformative transcendence of the other—in Troeltschian
terminology, the ‘force’ or the ‘driving force’ emanating from the turn to
the transcendent practiced by Jesus Christ. Following the ideal(ization)
of the other, then, elasticized ecclesiology would not be concerned with
the preservation of identity but with the preservation of alterity. Church
would be constituted by the finite and the infinite other—a church for
the other.42 The church could not leave its critic alone because the critic
might communicate God to the church and the critic could not leave the
church alone because the church might communicate God to the critic.
The communities which constitute church would not be consistent or
coherent but compromised. Troeltsch’s core concept of compromise is not
to be interpreted as a simple solution, a sell-out of church in a ‘cheap
compromise.’ Instead, it is about the risk church has to take in order to
be church, the risk to stay with the other in order to be ‘both pious and
practical’ as the minister put it. What would happen, if compromise was
taken as the criterion to tackle the current crisis of churches diagnosti-
cally and therapeutically? Practitioners could reclaim the practices of their
churches—their pews and their pulpits.
42
See also Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s tantalizing ‘Outline for a Book,’ in Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 8, trans.
Reginald H. Fuller (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 2010), 499–503.
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Index
A B
alterity. See also other, otherness Barth, Karl, 89, 95, 166n107
experience of, 5, 63 Bauman, Zygmunt, 129–44, 130n7,
neutralization of, 124, 127, 131n11, 133n22, 137n48,
148, 171, 205, 212, 216, 153, 179, 205, 210, 212,
226, 227, 234, 236, 246, 262, 263
256n137, 270 belief, beliefs, 20, 21, 23, 24, 24n34,
relational vs. non-relational, 5 29, 46, 58, 58n128, 84, 84n87,
Althusser, Louis, 232–5, 233n23, 91, 96, 96n152, 119, 152
236n39, 238, 239 Berger, Peter L., 165–9, 263
Anglican, Anglicanism, 1n1, 3, biblical, Bible, 131, 142n88, 224,
15, 16, 99, 175, 261, 238, 239, 242, 242n60
261n2, 268, 268n32, body, 71, 112, 198, 213–21, 237n42,
268n33, 269 239, 240, 257
anthropological, anthropology, 47, body of Christ, 111, 112, 112n47,
247, 247n90 198, 213–16, 219–22, 226, 227,
apophatic, 56, 61, 249n98 239, 240, 248
Augustine, 28, 123n129 Bruce, Steve, 149–53, 149n5,
Austin, John L., 11n48, 32–4, 36, 151n14, 155, 155n49, 159n76
177n1, 190, 193, 194, 230–4, Buber, Martin, 80n60, 120
230n5, 238, 262 Butler, Judith, 141, 141n80, 229–40,
authority, 122, 206, 236, 238, 230n5, 247, 248, 249n98,
245n82, 254 254–7, 263

306 INDEX
C consumer, consumerism, 157, 159,

Caird, Edward, 46 209, 217, 218, 224
cataphatic, 56, 61, 249n98 Corpus Christianum, 107, 115, 127,
Catholicism, 55n114, 58, 115, 125, 135, 152–4, 157, 168, 168n121,
151, 153, 153n35, 242 202. See also Christendom
Chapman, Mark D., 7n28, 42n19, culture, 80n61, 115–17, 124, 125,
59, 268n32 133, 135, 142, 143, 162n93,
Christendom, 117, 172, 198, 201, 206, 207, 209, 210,
201n25, 212n101, 215, 234, 212, 215–18, 221, 222, 226,
238. See also Corpus Christianum 227, 234, 239
christology, 45n42, 53, 55, 113,
200, 248, 249, 250n104, 253,
253n122 D
church, churches Dalferth, Ingolf U., 22n21, 23n24,
closure of, 6, 111, 176 68, 81–91, 81n63, 83n81,
crisis of, 1n1, 2–4, 12, 261, 267, 84n87, 93, 94, 96, 97, 185n35,
270, 271 262
of England, 1n1, 2, 3, 4n15, 12, 15, data, 26, 27, 147, 148, 173
261, 267–9 Davie, Grace, 76n56, 149, 149n5,
open, opened, 12, 99, 260, 265 160–3, 162n95
statistics, 1 deconstruction, 56, 56n117, 194, 255
Coakley, Sarah, 45n42, 50n76, Derrida, Jacques, 56, 57n122,
55n115, 250n104, 252, 253n122 186n43, 231, 231n10, 235,
coercion, 115–17, 125, 204, 204n43, 235n33, 255
216n133, 264–6 de-secularization, 148, 149, 155–64,
community 167–9, 173, 218, 263
closure of, 106, 108, 113, 130 desire, 47, 157, 158, 173, 214, 216,
collapse of, 9, 149, 198, 201, 220
201n25, 212, 212n101 Deutung, 70, 71, 109n28, 251. See
concept of, 2, 10, 13, 14n52, 41, also interpretation
60, 113, 132, 133, 137n48, difference, 3, 5, 5n22, 6n23, 10,
139n65, 149, 150, 163, 164, 25–7, 34, 35, 37, 39–65, 70,
173, 176, 230, 256n137 73–5, 77–9, 80n61, 81, 83n81,
open(ed), 2, 4, 7 85, 87, 92, 93, 95, 112, 115,
compromise(s), 116–18, 220, 227, 138, 140, 168n121, 173, 192,
263, 271 192n74, 194n83, 210n96, 211,
conflict(s), 2, 9n40, 13, 109n28, 118, 213n107, 214–16, 220, 221,
135, 169, 172, 190, 222, 224, 225, 226, 231, 253–5, 256n137,
254, 265, 266, 269 259, 261, 262
congregation, 2, 14n53, 15, 16, 99, dogma, dogmatics, 31, 58–61, 199,
127, 175, 207–9, 251, 256n137, 205, 240, 241, 241n52, 245,
261, 268 251, 256
INDEX 307
doubt, 7, 24n34, 69, 90, 166, 180, of transcendence, 12, 17n5, 18, 23,
184, 186–9, 193, 194, 227 25, 29, 30n67, 37, 43, 50, 55,
drive, 39–65, 70, 77, 79, 93, 138, 63, 65, 67–71, 74–8, 81, 89,
253–5, 262 92, 93, 97, 98, 101, 160n78,
dynamics, 41, 51, 53–5, 63, 64, 176, 249n98
207, 262 of trust, 22n22, 28, 59, 67, 68, 182
expression, 17, 19, 27, 28, 29n62, 30,
40, 51, 52, 54–8, 60–5, 67, 70–9,
E 91n121, 122, 163, 193, 208,
ecclesiasticist, ecclesiasticism, 103, 249, 250, 262
105–8, 113–18, 114n65, 120–2,
124–30, 126n143, 132, 135,
140, 144, 145, 148, 150, 152–5, F
157, 159, 163, 164, 166, 172, faith, 21n9, 22n16, 24, 28, 29,
173, 177, 262, 264n11 30n67, 37, 38, 50n76, 58, 59,
ecclesiology 64, 84, 90, 91, 119, 121, 152,
blueprint, 105, 106, 108, 115, 166–72, 174, 186n39, 201,
126n146, 128, 140 210n96, 215, 221, 232, 251, 252
elasticized, 17, 259, 260, 262 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 37n114, 44
of Paul, 108, 127, 207 force, driving force, 24, 33, 36, 121,
of Troeltsch, 8, 62 132, 182, 190, 193, 235, 250,
Eco, Umberto, 11n49, 259, 263, 270 254, 265, 271
ecumenical, ecumenism, 8 foundationalism, 199, 237, 240, 256
elastic, elasticity, elasticization, 11, 12, fundamentalism, 137, 186, 189, 255
14, 19, 38, 61, 65, 98, 100, 103,
131, 140, 177, 178, 198, 222,
229–60 G
Enlightenment, 102, 110n30, Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 187, 187n46,
115n68, 125, 152, 154 188, 190–3, 191n66, 192n74
eschatology, 110, 110n33, 111, 113, God
127, 132, 216, 219, 257, 270 doctrine of, 25
essence of Christianity. See identity encounter with, 54, 78
ethics, 59, 182n12, 201 of the gaps, 229, 248, 256, 257, 270
Eucharist, 71, 200n16, 213, 215, 216, Grøn, Arne, 96n153, 180–3,
218n152 181n6, 189
exclusive, exclusivism, 12, 17n6,
56n117, 130, 171
experience H
articulation of, 75n52 Habermas, Jürgen, 142, 142n88,
interpretation of, 28, 70, 77, 78 187n48, 223n202, 225n211
religious vs. non-religious, 31, 37, Haight, Roger D., 4n13, 9n40,
68, 69, 71, 77–9, 91, 97 14n54, 112n47, 154n41, 266n23
308 INDEX
Healy, Nicholas M., 105, 108, 115, immanent, immanence, 5, 20n5,

126–8, 140, 197 24, 37, 43, 47, 47n61, 48,
Hegel, Georg F.W., 45, 46, 49, 49, 52, 56, 64, 68, 77,
242n66 88–91, 169–73, 243
hermeneutical-constructive, 10, incarnation, 45, 45n42, 213
10n45, 11 inclusive, inclusivism, 12, 17n6,
hermeneutics, 5, 8n37, 42n17, 43, 72, 266n27, 267, 267n29
73, 75, 187, 187n48, 192, 202, individualization, 22n21, 25, 31, 60,
229, 243–9, 254, 255, 256n137, 63, 81, 83, 121n113, 122, 130,
257, 267S 131, 135, 144, 147–52, 154–6,
Herrmann, Wilhelm, 58, 58n132, 59, 160–4, 167, 171, 173, 206n57
59n137, 252 interiorization, 25, 31, 60, 81, 83,
historical-critical, 10n45, 11, 54 121n113, 122
historicism, 7n29, 41, 242n66, 244, interpellation, 230, 232–40,
244n78, 245n85 233n23, 255
history, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 43, interpretation, 3, 4, 10, 11, 21n10, 23,
45–50, 53, 54, 59, 64, 73, 74, 28, 31, 32, 50n76, 54–6, 63, 68,
87, 101, 105, 107n10, 108, 70–9, 85, 90, 92, 101, 106,
111–14, 120n108, 122, 110n30, 120, 130, 135, 137, 148,
123n129, 126n144, 141, 150, 153, 160, 163, 165, 168n121,
155, 157, 166, 168, 172, 177, 169, 177, 180, 187, 188, 190n55,
190n56, 192, 201n25, 212n101, 204, 210, 226, 230–2, 234, 239,
217, 223n202, 241, 242n66, 240, 241n57, 242, 243, 246–8,
244, 246, 249, 251, 252, 256, 251–4, 256, 257, 264n11
259n146, 262, 266, 268, 270 interreligious, 143n92
homosexuality, 175 intrareligious, 266, 267
hope, 140, 216
J
I James, William, 12, 16, 19, 20, 20n2,
Iannaccone, Laurence, 149, 156–9 24n34, 28n55, 32, 39, 41n15,
identity 50, 58n128, 67, 101, 121n113,
of Christianity, 11–13, 105, 116, 169, 170, 176, 183, 192n78,
118, 123, 145, 175–9, 197, 232, 262
203, 216, 227, 229, 231, Jeanrond, Werner G., 8n37, 78n59,
239–43, 241n57, 246–50, 80n61, 143, 143n95, 188–90,
254–8, 263, 267, 270 188n51, 193
of community, 144 Jesus, 6, 16, 36, 53–5, 59, 71, 73,
ideological, ideology, 24, 139, 170, 94, 97, 98, 106, 108, 109,
188, 189, 194, 202, 232–6, 109n28, 110n33, 111–13,
238–40, 255, 257 119, 122–4, 127, 155, 177, 210,
imagination, 51, 57n122, 62, 63, 76, 213, 218, 226, 238, 248–54,
91n121, 93, 172, 252 264–7, 270, 271
INDEX 309
Joas, Hans, 21n10, 22n20, 39n2, mysticist, mysticism, 13, 36, 105–8,
48n68, 50n75, 69, 101, 154, 113, 114, 114n65, 117, 118,
168, 244n78, 262, 263 120–30, 120n108, 136–41, 144,
145, 148, 153–6, 159n75, 162–4,
166, 170n140, 172, 173, 177,
K 198, 212, 227, 251, 252, 262
Kearney, Richard, 5, 6n25, 269
Kingdom of God, 108–11, 127,
132, 219n167, 221, 222, O
255, 256 other, otherness
Kuhn, Thomas S., 147 absence of, 139, 267
finite, 6, 7, 11–13, 23–5, 28–32,
34, 36, 37, 41, 60, 63, 65, 67,
L 68, 77–80, 83, 85–7, 89, 93,
Lash, Nicholas, 26n42, 31, 80n60 96–8, 100, 109–13, 115, 117,
Lauster, Jörg, 25n37, 69, 71–5, 77, 123, 124, 132, 144, 145, 155,
78, 242n60, 262 164, 176, 179, 180, 186, 227,
liberal, liberalism, 7, 10n43, 17, 19, 258, 262, 265, 267, 270
62, 72, 73, 101, 158, 176, 177, infinite, 6, 6n24, 7, 11–13, 23–5,
225, 241, 265 28–32, 34, 36–8, 41, 60, 63,
Lindbeck, George A., 17n4, 199, 200, 65, 67, 68, 77–81, 80n60, 83,
215n125 85–7, 89, 90, 93, 96–8, 100,
love, 69, 80, 80n61, 109, 110, 112, 108–13, 115, 117, 127, 132,
132, 139, 200, 200n17, 214, 144, 145, 155, 164, 176, 179,
215, 224, 224n203, 226 180, 186, 227, 255, 258, 262,
Luckmann, Thomas, 77n57, 160, 265–7, 270, 271
160n79–82, 167 neutralization of, 106, 123, 130,
Luther, Martin, 28, 29n60, 84, 136, 139, 204, 205, 211, 212
85n90, 142n88, 154, relation between finite and infinite,
155n45, 181 14, 68, 85n90, 86, 255, 260
M P
market of religions, 157 paradigm, 147, 148, 148n3, 149, 150,
metaphysics, 89, 218, 218n152, 220, 152, 153, 155, 156, 156n50,
242n66 157–65, 167, 168n119, 173,
Milbank, John, 9n42, 10n43, 101, 206, 207, 209, 211
102, 198–207, 209, 215n122, particularistic, 114, 118–20, 124, 126
226, 234, 239, 245n84, 253, 263 Pascal, Blaise, 20–3, 28, 37, 38, 232
modern, modernity, 2n6, 23, 115n68, Paul, 4n13, 33n87, 35, 58n128,
116, 121, 130, 132–4, 136, 139, 91n121, 106, 108, 111, 111n41,
140, 148, 150, 153, 160, 163, 112, 113, 117, 119, 123, 124,
165, 168n121, 173, 214, 217, 127, 136n6, 177n2, 187n48, 188,
218, 223n195 206, 207, 217, 219, 220, 238
310 INDEX
performative, performativity, 11–13, psychology of religion, 20, 39n1

32, 33n94, 177, 177n1, 178, Putnam, Robert D., 124n132, 149
190, 192–4, 197, 197n2, 202,
229–33, 235–40, 247, 248,
249n98, 250, 252–60, 261n2, R
263, 264n9, 265, 270, 271 rationality, 24n34, 56, 232
phenomenology of religion, 44n33, recognition, 9n40, 48, 112, 180–3,
45n37, 69 189, 191, 215, 221, 230, 233,
philosophy of religion, 20, 121n113 255, 257, 263
pluralist, pluralism, 165, 165n103, reductionism, 55, 56, 68, 81, 86,
167, 225n211, 254, 266, 267 93, 107
pluralization, 124, 147–51, 151n16, Reformation, 6n26, 117, 124, 150,
156–9, 159n75, 161, 163–7, 151, 153–5, 157, 163, 264n11,
168n121, 169, 173, 254, 264, 265 268n32
pneumatological, pneumatology, 111 relation
political, politics, 7n32, 13, 47, 101, to the finite other, 6, 6n26, 11–13,
112, 138, 141, 143, 144, 150–2, 23, 32, 41, 60, 63, 65, 67, 68,
198, 212–27, 230, 231, 236–40, 78–80, 83, 87, 96–8, 100,
248, 255–7, 263 109–11, 113, 115, 132, 144,
postliberal, postliberalism, 17–19, 62, 155, 164, 176, 186, 258, 265,
98, 101, 176, 177, 198n3, 239, 267, 270
241, 262 to the infinite other, 6, 6n26,
postmodern, postmodernity, 2n6, 121, 11–13, 23, 32, 41, 60, 63, 65,
129n5, 131, 136–8, 140, 67, 68, 78–80, 83, 87, 96–8,
212n101, 214, 217, 218 100, 109–13, 115, 127, 132,
postsecular, 217, 218 144, 155, 164, 176, 179, 180,
power, 91n121, 187, 197–227, 239, 186, 258, 265, 267, 270
241, 250, 256, 257, 259 relationality, 6, 19, 22, 37, 44–6, 48,
practice 51, 52, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 67,
of churches, 107, 110, 197, 199, 80n61, 83, 86, 92, 96, 97, 131,
202–5, 210n96, 211, 222, 226, 186, 214
227, 234, 239, 258 religion, 1n1, 6n23, 13, 16, 17, 17n5,
of Jesus, 106, 108, 111n41, 112, 18, 25, 25n37, 31, 37, 39–57,
113, 113n57, 117, 119, 122–4, 60–5, 67, 69, 71–4, 76n56, 77, 78,
127, 155, 177, 249 89, 91n121, 93, 96, 101–3, 107,
Praetorius, Ina, 94, 95 121, 122, 130, 137, 138, 144,
propositional, propositionality, 11–13, 145, 147–65, 167, 168, 173, 186,
47, 177, 178, 190, 192–4, 202, 192n78, 201n25, 217, 218, 238,
229, 230, 240, 247, 248, 250, 239, 246, 249, 259n145, 262,
252–5, 257–9, 261n2, 263, 265, 263, 266, 268, 268n34
270, 271 religiosity, 12, 13, 15–18, 21, 25, 28,
Protestantism, 58, 115, 125, 151, 30, 37, 38, 44, 56, 64, 121, 171,
153, 154, 242, 264n11 176, 262
INDEX 311
revelation, 41, 48n67, 51–5, 58, sociology of religion, 13, 102, 103,
59, 64, 72–5, 77–9, 89, 95, 114n66, 145, 147–9, 155n49,
249, 250 156, 158, 163–5, 168, 173,
Ricoeur, Paul, 33n87, 35, 177n2, 262, 263
187n48, 188, 190n55 Stålsett, Sturla J., 247, 247n90, 248,
Rivera, Mayra, 95, 269 256n134
Rorty, Richard, 31, 31n76, 31n79, 58
T
S Taylor, Charles, 21n11, 23, 24,
Schleiermacher, Friedrich D.E., 137n48, 142n88, 153, 169–74,
6n23, 23n23, 39, 39n2, 170n140, 253
42n17, 45n37, 48, 48n67, Theissen, Gerd, 54, 114n63
126n143, 166, 241n56, theocracy, 198, 221, 222, 240, 257
264n9, 266n23 theology, 5, 5n16, 7, 9, 10n45, 12, 14,
Schmitt, Carl, 223, 223n202, 34, 40, 41, 45n42, 48, 48n67,
224, 225n215, 226, 227, 53n104, 58, 60–2, 64, 72, 73,
240, 257 80n60, 84, 84n87, 88, 91,
sectarianist, sectarianism, 13, 105–8, 91n121, 94, 95, 100–3, 106,
113, 114, 114n65, 115n67, 112n47, 116, 122, 161n90, 166,
117–22, 124–30, 136, 137, 168, 182, 199, 201n25, 203n35,
139–41, 144, 145, 148, 153–6, 205, 205n52, 207, 208, 210, 212,
159, 159n75, 164, 166, 223, 225n212, 234, 240, 245,
171n140, 172, 173, 177, 198, 245n84, 247n90, 248, 249, 253,
205, 226n217, 227, 262 262, 263, 265, 266n28, 268n32
secularization, 102, 103, 122n116, Tönnies, Ferdinand, 133, 133n23,
125, 132, 147n1, 148–56, 158, 133n26, 134, 135
159n76, 160n80, 160–4, 166–9, Tracy, David, 2n6, 251, 267n31
173, 206, 218, 263 tradition, 42n19, 51–3, 57, 59, 62, 64,
sex, sexuality, 119, 123, 175, 176, 71, 72, 81, 122, 138, 152, 166,
214, 222 170n135, 200, 218, 219, 222,
Simmel, Georg, 120, 120n111 242, 242n61, 257, 264, 268n32
skepticism, 186, 189, 255 transcendent, transcendence, 5, 8, 12,
sociological, sociology, 1n1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 17n5, 18, 20, 20n5, 22–5,
10, 12–14, 23n25, 40, 68, 69, 28–32, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 44,
73, 78, 97, 100–3, 106, 112, 47, 48, 52, 55, 56, 62–5, 67–82,
117, 120, 121, 127, 128, 130, 85–93, 95–8, 100, 101, 108,
131, 140, 142–5, 147–52, 112, 155, 160, 160n78, 161,
155n49, 156–8, 160, 161, 168–73, 176, 177, 181–3, 184,
163–5, 167–9, 173, 177, 192, 192n74, 205, 212, 229,
201n25, 205, 209, 210, 213, 249, 250, 253–5, 260, 262,
248, 250, 252n116, 255, 262–7 265–7, 269–71
312 INDEX
transformative, transformation, 2, 24, ecclesiasticism; mysticist,

68, 72–80, 82, 87, 97, 100, 121, mysticism; sectarianist,
155, 171, 176, 180–3, 185, 188, sectarianism
191–4, 192n74, 204n42, 205,
212, 229, 230, 249, 250, 253–5,
257, 260, 262, 265–7, 270, 271 U
translation, xin1, 6n26, 43, 58n128, universalistic, 114, 116, 117, 120, 126
77n57, 97n155, 130, 132, utopia, 130, 132, 139, 140, 219,
133n22, 142–4, 175, 256n133 219n167
trust
circle of, 20, 22n20, 24, 25, 31, 37,
45, 67, 71, 79, 83, 84n87, V
183, 185 von Harnack, Adolf, 241, 252
in the finite other, 31, 67, 83, 85–7, vulnerable, vulnerability, 15, 21, 22,
93, 97, 262 220, 247, 247n90, 248, 256,
in the infinite other, 31, 38, 67, 83, 256n134
85–7, 83, 97, 262
prejudice of, 184–6, 188–90, 194,
195, 230, 240, 244, 257, 267, W
269, 270 Ward, Graham, 5n16, 76n55, 90, 102,
togetherness of, 12, 13, 65, 67–103, 102n14, 112n47, 198, 204, 212,
133, 164, 174, 176, 179–81, 215n122, 218, 219, 223,
183, 184, 189–91, 194, 195, 225n213, 226, 227, 239,
227, 230, 257, 258, 263, 270 244n79, 248, 254, 257, 263
truth, 94, 120, 123, 180, 187, Ward, Pete, 112n47, 126n146, 198,
189–95, 203n35, 204, 230, 257, 205n48, 205n52, 217–19, 226,
258, 265 263
typology, 12, 13, 77n57, 103, 105, Welz, Claudia, 81n65, 85n92, 86n95,
107, 108, 113–15, 114n65, 120, 96n153, 180, 182n12, 184
121, 131, 135, 139, 144, 148, Williams, Rowan, 17n6, 32, 34,
149, 152, 156, 158n69, 35n107, 56, 173, 194n83, 262
160n79, 162–4, 170, 174, Woodhead, Linda, 121n114, 150n6,
205, 211, 226n217, 262, 165n99
267n29. See also ecclesiasticist, worship, 16, 24, 207, 208, 269

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um enical and Inter rel

More information about this series at

Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955946

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover image © Alexander Blinov / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

If the elasticization of ecclesiology could be taken literally, churches would

to their theological thinking and for continuing to agree and to disagree

be an insider to the practices of church and what it is like to be an outsider

Munich, May 2016 Ulrich Schmiedel

Texts Written by Ernst Troeltsch*

AC The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions

KG ‘Die Kirche im Leben der Gegenwart’

Introduction: Church(es) in Crisis1

1 The Traces of Trust 19

2 The Drive for Difference 39

3 The Togetherness of Trust 67

Part II Community 99

4 The Construction of Community 105

5 The Attack on Alterity 129

6 The Promise of Plurality 147

Part III Identity 175

7 The Trouble with Trust 179

8 The Power of Practice 197

9 The Elasticization of Ecclesiology 229

Conclusion: Crisis in Church(es)261

Churches are in crisis. Across Europe, Christian churches attract fewer

© The Author(s) 2017 1

Woodhead, ‘Time,’ 14.

partmentalize the Church of England into communities characterized

a checkered career in philosophy and theology.16 Hermeneutically, the

the thought of a school. On the contrary, he advocated thinking beyond

throughout my study—an approach which is located in-between denomi-

maligned mixture, a ‘syndrome’ which has to be cured.43 Yet Troeltsch’s

Instead of abandoning his thinking to antiquarians, then, I aim to translate

siasticism,’ ‘sectarianism’ and ‘mysticism,’ I will investigate how ‘commu-

brings Troeltsch’s thinking to bear on the controversies which revolve

communities to challenge ‘their’ persons. It must start, then, by defining

The Traces of Trust

The clash between liberalism and postliberalism revolves around the

© The Author(s) 2017 19

James introduces the concept of trust in a facetious but forceful response

James, however, is not convinced: ‘stupefy your scruples,’ he snip-

some of the force of each opposing position.’28 As Taylor adds, James is

[M]y understanding of the immanent frame is that, properly understood, it

However, considering the Jamesian account of the circle of trust, there

It is puzzling that there is no definition of the concept of experience in

For James, then, experience is simultaneously a reaction and a construc-

(the beliefs).60 For Luther, these dimensions were inextricably interwo-

Through the individualization and interiorization of religion, James

of God would seem to be to abandon them, at birth, in some untracked

Since description introduces a distance between the describer and the

Although Austin is not explicitly engaged in these Lectures, Williams

Language requires trust: I trust that my speech is intelligible to the other

Williams argues that if language is recast as representation, then ‘we

infinite other is characterized as completely unknowable (and thus inef-

The Drive for Difference

Ernst Troeltsch was fascinated by the turn to experience.1 According to

© The Author(s) 2017 39

In this chapter, I will explore Troeltsch’s reception of James.5 In

reception of James gestures toward a tacit theory of trust which interre-

Munich, May 2016 Ulrich Schmiedel

Introduction: Church(es) in Crisis1

1 The Traces of Trust 19

2 The Drive for Difference 39

3 The Togetherness of Trust 67

Part II Community 99

4 The Construction of Community 105

5 The Attack on Alterity 129

6 The Promise of Plurality 147

Part III Identity 175

7 The Trouble with Trust 179

8 The Power of Practice 197

9 The Elasticization of Ecclesiology 229

Conclusion: Crisis in Church(es)261

s eparates immanence and transcendence, but stresses that the differentia-

e xperience of religious relationality is neither ineffable (along the lines of

s elf-transcendence can be interpreted with or without reference to a tran-

to the relation to God might be suspect to both theologians and non-

c ommunity creates a climate of distrust, it will support distrust. Hence, the

However, if trust is conceived of as (the mode of) a relation ‘in-

comprehensive account of the thinking of transcendence in philosophy

lueprints, these ecclesiologies reduce ‘church’ to a clear-cut concept

continues to criticize both theological reductionism and non-theological